A Day in the Sun
by Mikkeneko
Summary: Thor runs afoul of Loki's latest diabolical plot - to lure him into a trap and steal his body, his powers, and his identity! But once he has Thor's life, what does Loki plan to do with it? 2014 Big Bang fic, Loki/Tony, bodyswap, humor.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: A Day in the Sun  
><strong>Pairing<strong>: Tony/Loki  
><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: This was written for the Norse Big Bang challenge of 2014. The art portion for the challenge can be found at the profile of **kneel_to_maria** on DeviantArt. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Thor awoke to the noise of a beak tapping on his windows.<p>

Overall he liked the quarters Tony Stark had provided for him in the Stark family hall, better known as the Avengers Mansion. They were spacious and tastefully appointed, if not as rich as his father's hall on Asgard (but then again, what was?) with comfortable furnishings actually sized to accommodate his height and weight. A manually-adjusted thermostat allowed him to control the temperature of his quarters, he had his own built-in bar and stocked minifridge, and overall it felt much more civilized than the rough camping he was accustomed to doing in most other realms. Truly, he appreciated the hospitality Stark had shown for him, and the thoughtfulness that had gone into preparing these rooms for him.

But there were some things that just weren't the same as they were in Asgard, and the glass windows were one. Here on Midgard, the air outside was plagued with various unpleasantness - pollution and smog from their vehicles, tiny whining insects and curious critters, the constant muffled roaring of their teeming city. In Asgard, subtle force-barriers would do the job of keeping these unwanted elements away from private homes; here in Midgard, they had not such technology, and instead resorted to thick sheets of clear glass. Which were serviceable enough in keeping the weather and pests out while letting the light in, but they did tend to block the fresh flow of air, and Thor missed being able to step out on his bedroom balcony to survey the kingdom.

The windows also kept out ravens.

Thor roused himself groggily from his bed and went to undo the little metal latch that kept the window closed. In the dim yellowish light outside - a reflection of the harsh sodium lights that were everywhere in this city - he recognized the shape of the bird, an enormous black raven. The iridescent gleam of colors off the spread tail and wing feathers, as well as the deep intelligence in its beady eyes when it turned to look at him, only cemented the recognition - as well he ought to have known him, since this animal had been Odin's companion for all of Thor's life.

"Huginn, my friend," Thor whispered, as he swung the casement wide to let the bird in. It hopped onto the windowsill, then onto his forearm, ruffling its wings and digging sharp talons into his skin. Thor winced. "What news from Father?"

Alas, the All-Speak - capable of translating any known language across the galaxy - did not extend to beasts, not even magical ones. Huginn mantled his wings again and croaked once, pulling Thor's wrist upwards and towards the open window. It was obvious that he wanted Thor to follow. "What is it, boy?" Thor asked him. "Has Baldur fallen into Mimir's well again?"

Many of Thor's adventures had started in just such a way - with or without the Warriors Three or the Lady Sif, but rarely without Loki's presence at his side. Thor felt a pang of sadness at the loss, but Loki was truly fallen from them; nowadays he lurked about in the shadows on Midgard, or between the Realms, and allied himself with various unsavory supervillainous types.

For a moment Thor considered waking one of his shield-brothers, the Avengers, to accompany him on whatever quest or task the All-Father had sent Huginn to fetch him for. In the end, he decided against it; although Odin had grudgingly allowed him to stay on Earth and battle with the Avengers, it was plain he disapproved of Thor's fondness for and association with the mortals. He would not be pleased at Thor dragging a lot of mortals along into Asgardian business, and Thor did not particularly wish to expose any of them to his father's censure.

Huginn croaked at him again, more impatiently this time, and pecked at his ear. Thor chuckled and gave the bird a careful pet of the head, which caused Huginn to ruffle his feathers and mutter to himself resentfully. Then he raised his free hand, called Mjolnir to him, and climbed out the window, shutting it carefully behind him. He still remembered Captain Rogers' lecture about the cost of electricity, and how wasteful it could be to leave windows open to expose the indoors to the elements.

Once Thor was in the open air, Huginn launched from his wrist, talons digging deeply enough to draw a scratch of blood, and circled overhead. "Lead on, my feathered friend," Thor called up to him, and Huginn took flight towards the west, flying faster than any mortal bird could have managed. Thor swung Mjolnir a few times to build up momentum, and followed.

Huginn led him westwards, into the heart of the continent, for a long time. The night gradually brightened towards dawn, though slowly as they chased after the trailing night. Most of the mortals coming gradually to wakefulness below him did not notice their passage through the sky.

At last Huginn began to circle and dip once more to the earth, and Thor saw the shadow of a cave in the hillside. He dropped to the earth and strode forward, Mjolnir still held ready in his grip.

Inside the cave it was dark, and Huginn's caw echoed harshly off the stone walls. Thor called a little bit of lightning to Mjolnir - not much, just enough to cause the runes embossed on the hammer's head to glow - and peered forward.

The sparse light gleamed off metal ahead, a long shaft of silver with the dark form of the crow perched atop it. As he stepped forward, he was able to make it out to be a long silver sword, its hilt encrusted with gold and gems under the raven's clutching claws, its shaft sunk deep into a raised stone platform.

He knew that sword. Thor frowned as recognition dawned on him. It was Laevateinn, the wondrous sword of Frey, which he had bargained away to Gymir for the hand of Gerda in marriage. It was imbued with thaumic protocols that could turn even the clumsiest trainee into a master swordsman, which could cut through solid stone like butter. The loss of the enchanted sword had been a blow to Asgard, for a weapon of its power should never have left the vaults. How had it come to be here?

Huginn cawed again, then pecked at the hilt impatiently. Thor thought he understood. Odin or Heimdall must have spied the sword and, unable to get to Midgard or unwilling to leave Asgard, had sent Huginn as a messenger to get him to retrieve the relic for them. Thor strode forward, reaching out for the hilt, and Huginn fluttered aside and out of his sight.

As soon as Thor set his hand on the sword's hilt, he felt a sudden biting jolt of magic up his arm. Surprised, he reflexively jerked his arm back, only to find that his hand was stuck fast to the sword.

Behind him he heard the sound of Huginn's raucous cawing, and the echoes within the tiny stone chamber were deafening. There was the sound of rushing air, and suddenly the raven's calls were replaced by laughter - a laughter that was all too familiar.

"Oh, _Thor,"_ an equally familiar voice spoke, laden with scorn. "Still rushing so eagerly ahead into adventure, never bothering to take the slightest precautions. After all the centuries I spent trying patiently to carve prudence into your brain! I'm not sure whether I should be offended, that you ignored my efforts so effectively, or pleased, that you are as predictable as ever."

"Loki!" Thor jerked around in shock, his left hand still stuck fast to the sword - the bait in the trap, he realized - to see his once-brother standing behind him. He flung his hammer at his enemy, more startled reflex than forethought, but the hammer passed through empty air as Loki's image shimmered and vanished. "How did you - _you_ were Huginn? But how?!"

Loki scoffed, and Thor's attention was brought to his seeming, appearing in another part of the cave. "Oh please, Thor," he said scornfully. "I grew up with that wretched bird, I've known it for as many years as you have. Of course I know it well enough to mimic its form, right down to the smallest tailfeather. The question is really why _you_ thought it was a good idea to go haring off after a bird in the night."

"But Huginn is the All-Father's messenger!" Thor exclaimed. "Counterfeiting his arms or any of his messengers is treason, you know that!"

"Treason? You don't say!" Loki affected shocked surprise, putting his hand to his chest as though about to faint. "How much do I care about treason? Let me count the ways." He made a show of raising his hand to count off his fingers. "Oh wait. _Zero._ Zero ways."

"Loki -" Thor started, but Loki interrupted him.

"But enough talking," he said, rather unfairly in Thor's view since he'd been doing most of the talking. "Let's get right to the point, shall we?"

He raised his staff, and green lines of light suddenly sprang into view on the stone floor, hidden until now by the cave's shadows. They circled the plinth, and Thor standing stuck fast to it, and a complex pattern of runes inscribed themselves within the inner boundary of the circle. Thor could not read them all - he was never as skilled with the runes as Loki - but he knew enough to know he did not want to be standing within the boundary of the circle when the spell went off. He pulled frantically at his stuck hand - the sword, he realized now that he was close enough, was just another fake - and called for Mjolnir with his free one.

Not fast enough. The lines of light completed their circuit, and kept going - they ran across the floor like licking flames to make a channel that linked them to a second circle, this one forming around Loki. Eerily underlit by the green magefire, Loki raised his staff and chanted a few spellwords. Upon catching Thor's eye, seeing his expression of horror, Loki winked at him.

Then the green light roared to a conflagration, and Thor's world went dark. The last thing he heard, before the darkness took him, was his brother's hysterical laughter.

* * *

><p>Thor woke up groggy and foul-mouthed, his eyelids heavy with sand and with a crick in his neck from sleeping on the stone floor. He felt -<p>

Wait. _Stone floor?!_

Thor surged to his feet as the memories of the last few hours poured through him. Huginn's appearance outside his window. Following the raven into the cave, finding Laevateinn. Huginn turning into Loki, his brother-enemy's mocking taunts. The floor giving way beneath him, and then a flash of bright light...

And then he had awoken here, in this barren stone chamber with only the barest of furnishings, and decorations - no, those etchings on the walls were not decorative at all. They were runes. _Spellwork._

"Welcome back to the world of waking, _Brother,"_ a familiar voice purred from behind him. Thor whirled around, barely taking in the small gurgling spring set in the wall beside him as he stared at the figure behind him.

"Loki!" It _had_ to be Loki, standing in the corridor with a huge grin on his face. Wearing _Thor's face._ Thor was thrown for a moment, but he hadn't survived adolescence with Loki as a brother without becoming used to Loki's illusions. "What devilish plot have you -"

He stopped mid-sentence, one hand flying up to his throat. His voice was strange and strangled, coming out breathy and too high-pitched. And his _hands_ were...

Thor stared at his hands in horror, turning them over and flexing the fingers. They were long and slender, and the nails had been painted a glossy black. They were _not his hands._

He turned and lunged for the small battered dresser in the corner, with a tall oval mirror fixed into its back. The silver surface was tarnished and uneven, but his reflection showed it clearly enough: dark hair framing a pale, narrow face, out of which brilliant green eyes shone starkly.

Meanwhile Loki - in _Thor's body,_ in the background - was laughing his head off.

"What have you done, Loki?" Thor demanded, incensed by this proof of Loki's latest mad scene.

"Why, no more than taken what ought to be mine," Loki replied, a smile twisting his face and his blue eyes lighting with unholy glee. "Now _I_ am the golden child, now _I_ am the favored one - all that is yours will be mine, Thor, and _you_ will be left to languish in this dark pit - forgotten, in solitude and emptiness, just as you would have _me_ languish!"

"Loki!" Enraged, Thor threw himself towards his brother - only to be stopped mid-air, as a shimmering barrier of sparks leapt into being in the doorway. Thor stopped, plastered against the barrier and glaring daggers through it. "What _is_ this? How are you doing this?"

"It's _sorcery,_ Thor, sorcery most foul," Loki said, still grinning insanely wide. "What did you expect? A simple enough barrier spell, easy to take down - _if,_ of course, you had studied enough magic to know how to do it. What a pity you spent all your years bashing away your brain cells in the training ring, instead." He turned his head and flexed one of Thor's arms, admiring the way the tendons stood out along the muscle. "Or perhaps not such a pity - you _did_ develop some admirably mighty thews in the meantime, for which I now thank you, Brother."

"Loki, take down this barrier in this instant! Return us both to our proper forms!" Thor demanded. Loki, perhaps not surprisingly, only smiled at him.

"Oh, I think not," he said. "Not until I've had a chance to sample _all_ of the wonders your life can afford me. Mmm... Perhaps I should pay a visit to Asgard while I have the chance. Look in on our old friends, our dear father... pay a visit to the weapons vault, perhaps?" His smile widened into a grin, showing rows of white perfect teeth. "The Crown Prince has authority to take anything he wishes out of the vault, after all, and _no one_ would question me to do so. It's an opportunity not to be lightly missed.

"But then, Asgard _is_ such a long way away. Perhaps I should find entertainment right here on Midgard, instead. You seem to find _such_ enjoyment here after all, Brother. Maybe I should really have some fun. Summon a few tornadoes and hurricanes, destroy a few national monuments, kill a politician or two... of course, it will be _your face_ that turns up in the newspapers the next day, wouldn't it?"

"Loki, you wouldn't!" Thor exclaimed, horrified by the mental images Loki was conjuring up. He struck the invisible barrier with one fist, generating more sparks, but no yield.

"_Wouldn't_ I? What, Thor, now that you wear my body you imagine you can tell _me_ what I would or would not do?" Loki leaned closer towards the barrier, his eyes an icy blue. "I look forward to returning to Avengers tower in this form - passing right through all that irritating security that Stark insists on putting up. I can imagine all those full friends of yours lounging about and chatting with ease, never suspecting that the enemy is _among_ them... not until the first dagger lands in their back, anyway!"

"Loki, no!" Thor's outrage was quickly giving way to horror, and his demanding tone gave way to pleading. "No, Loki, you can't!"

"I think you'll find, Odinson," Loki said, and his usual suave purr was dropped to a deep rumble in Thor's voice, "that with your might and my magic combined, there is _very little_ that I can't do."

And with that he turned his back, red cape swirling about his shoulders, and strode away down the hallway. "Think on it, dear brother, in my absence," Loki called back down the hall, his voice fading as he moved away. "You'll have little else to entertain you in that chamber, I fear. Think _long and hard_ on it."

The sound of Loki's laughter was the last thing Thor heard; then his brother was gone.

Loki stepped out of the maze of caverns into the clear air, still smiling to himself. He stopped and took a deep breath of the cold mountain air, enjoying the feel of wind rushing through his new, voluminous chest. So much potential lay ahead of him, so much to _do._

Although now that the opportunity was in his hand, Loki wasn't sure what he wanted to do first. Oh, the threats and fantasies he'd weaved for Thor down in the prison were one thing; steal treasures from Asgard, make trouble in Thor's name, attack his pitiful mortal friends. But in reality, he'd gotten more pleasure from watching Thor's horrified face as he listed off his wicked plans than he would from actually carrying them out. Getting past the magical defenses in Asgard was probably more trouble than it would be worth, Thor's body or no. Nefarious plans were just as easy to carry out in his own form, aside from the fleeting pleasure of ruining Thor's reputation in the process. And there was just no _fun_ to be had in destroying Thor's little friends when they weren't expecting it. Easy. No _sport_ to it.

Besides; now that he'd _made_ his threats to Thor, Thor would expect him to carry them out to the letter. And that was just... dull. Cliched. And if there was one thing Loki hated, it was to be thought predictable.

The fact was that sooner or later, the spell would break, and he'd be found out. Then everything he accomplished with Thor's body would be undone and ruined; Thor's name would be cleared, his reputation and relationships restored. While he had this opportunity, Loki wanted to do something _real_ with it, something that would _last._

Loki inhaled another searingly clear breath, and then began to chuckle. He _knew_ what he would do - and it would be something that _none_ of them would expect. He would _not_ ruin Thor's reputation and friendships after all. He would _not_ destroy Thor's life; no, he would do something far worse.

He would _surpass_ it.

With Thor's might and his own magic, as he'd said, there was no limit to what he could do. With his strategic brain directing Thor's own formidable powers, he could be _twice_ the man that Thor ever was. He had all of Thor's network of relationships, but none of his doltish insensitivity. He would be a better warrior, a better hero, and a better _friend_ than _Thor_ could ever hope to be.

And when the spell inevitably failed and Thor was returned to his normal life, he would be met with the disappointment of all around him that _he_ was no longer the man that _Loki_ had been. At last, Thor would take his proper place in _Loki's_ shadow.

Loki squared Thor's shoulders, threw back Thor's face to the sky, and laughed.

* * *

><p>Mjolnir was still where she had fallen from Thor's hands; Loki had warded the underground chamber carefully against the spell that recalled her to his grasp. Loki approached the hammer warily, trying to temper his anticipation with cynical caution. A spell such as the All-Father's was powerful enough not to be lifted or undone, but Loki knew enough of magic to guess at its workings. Mjolnir herself was a powerful relic, half-sentient in the way that artifacts of power sometimes were, and there was <em>her<em> will to contend with along with Odin's.

Still, he would need Mjolnir at his side to complete the ruse. Thor never went long without his beloved hammer at his side, and the longer he was seen without it, the more suspicious it would become. And besides, if he _could_ lift Mjolnir, if he _could_ call upon the storm magics bound within its uru heart... well. He could do more with that power than Thor himself ever dreamed.

He stretched out a hand - Thor's hand - and wrapped his fingers around the hammer's handle. Loki hesitated a moment, then bunched the muscles of his arm and tugged. Mjolnir did not budge.

His shoulders slumped slightly, but he gave the handle one more tug just to be certain that he was not being too ginger and contending only with the hammer's considerable weight. But no; against Thor's mighty thews there should not be this much resistance; the hammer was stuck fast.

Loki withdrew his arm with a resigned sigh. Apparently it was a combination of both body _and_ soul that was needed to fulfill the terms of Odin's geas; each portion of the self had its own kind of magic, and his own was not at all like Thor's. Well, if he could not lift Mjolnir, at least he could be sure that Thor could not either, even if he were to somehow escape his captivity; Mjolnir would never permit herself to be wielded by a Frost Giant.

Nevertheless. Even though he had half-expected this outcome, Mjolnir's obstinacy put a crimp in Loki's plans. He needed Mjolnir, or a reasonable facsimile, to pass for Thor. Loki cast his eyes around the dusty cave, looking for something he could use as a base, and his eyes fell upon a withered old stick: twisted and knotted, about the size of a walking cane.

Loki pulled it loose from where it had been wedged into a crack in the wall, knocking it against the stone to dislodge any remaining roots or debris from it. Then he hefted the stick in his hand and began to cast a spell of transformation upon it, drawing on a thousand years' worth of memory of what Mjolnir should look like.

When he was finished, he held in his hands an identical replica to the hammer itself, although it still weighed as lightly in his hands as the dry wooden stick it truly was. He compared his replica against the original and made a last few modifications - not that anyone was likely to know the weapon well enough to spot the differences, but Loki always did have something of a perfectionist streak.

He swung his new 'hammer' overhead and marveled at what a sight he must make, striking a heroic pose with the legendary weapon held in his hands. Only one thing was left to make it complete...

Loki called upon his own magic and imbued his fake hammer with energy; it was greenish at first, until he adjusted the hue to match Thor's own lightning. He did not have the power of storms in his soul, as Thor did, but lightning was merely another kind of energy, and Loki had no lack of that. When he was finished, his false Mjolnir could spit bolts of bright blue energy that looked, and felt, enough like lightning to fool the casual observer.

Satisfied with his work, Loki hooked the false Mjolnir in belt his the same way Thor always wore it, and went on his way.

* * *

><p>A few hours easy travel brought him back to civilization, and from there it did not take him long to reach the Avengers Tower. The mortals had been diligent in their labors, Loki thought; there was barely any sign at all of the damages that Loki had inflicted during his last attempt to destroy the place.<p>

There was new security on each of the doors, technology that Loki recognized as being Stark's. It wasn't bad for Midgard, but it accepted Thor's thumbprint on the glass panel by the front door and Thor's retina scan on the elevator without a hitch. Midgard had yet to develop a biometric device that would identify the user's soul. On the door of the hallway leading to Thor's rooms, there was an actual password lock but Loki, with a thousand years of his brother's habits under his belt, guessed the password on the first try. He had to shake his head. Really, when would Thor stop using _tanngrisnir_ as his password to everything?

His first order of business, Loki thought, was to blend in. He needed to act as normally as possible until he had settled in and gotten the feel for the rhythm of life here, so that he did not attract unwarranted suspicion. At least until his cover was better established, he needed to be as genial, benevolent, affable, and slow-witted as Thor ever was.

Fortunately, that didn't mean he couldn't have _some_ fun in the process. A thousand years of living with Thor had left him with a deep enough well to draw on.

He wandered back into the Avengers common areas: a whole floor devoted to living and recreation rooms, a large dining room and an even larger kitchen. To his disappointment, none of the other Avengers were in residence at the Tower. He had been looking forward to meeting them again in his new guise, completely unwitting and unaware of the danger that lurked within their midst, but it seemed that would have to wake. In the meantime Loki took several long minutes to consult his memories of living with his brother, and set off to make preparations.

He opened all the windows and their attendant screens of the common rooms, allowing the noise and smell and insects of the New York summer inside. He changed from his battle-armor into casual clothes, and carefully arranged his sweat-stained underclothes to drape over communal sofas and coffee tables, capping it off by placing Thor's mud-stained boots prominently on the dining table.

Procuring a quick meal for himself, he dirtied as many dishes as possible, then left them about on strategic surfaces. He rummaged about in the shared refrigerator and found a carton of milk, which he drank straight from the contained, down to the very last drop, and then he set the carton back on the shelf. As a final grace note, he left the freezer door cracked just slightly open, so that everything inside it would melt.

Hours later, as he was reclining on Thor's bed reading through his diary, a knock came at his door. "Come," Loki called up and sat up slightly, eagerly awaiting the fruits of his labor.

It turned out to be the Captain, who had an expression of strained patience stretched thinly over a deep disgruntlement. "Hey, Thor," Rogers greeted him politely. "I just wanted to let you know, you left the freezer door open again. We've talked about this, remember? It wastes electricity."

"Did I truly?" Loki feigned astonishment, while inwardly convulsed with laughter over Thor's predictability. "How careless of me. I am truly sorry. Was there anything else?"

"Yes, actually. Look Thor, I know we've had conversations about how we want you to be comfortable in the common areas, but they're meant to be for _everyone,_ and it's just not okay for you to be constantly leaving your dirty clothes and dishes out in the open. You need to pick up after yourself."

Loki pasted a look of bewilderment over Thor's features. "Does the man of Iron not have servants to maintain his quarters?" he asked. "Should _they_ not earn their keep?"

Steve shut his eyes and groaned. "They're not _servants_ Thor, they're _employees,"_ he said. "We've been over this before. And they'll do the deep cleaning, but it's not their job to pick up after us like nannies. I know it's not easy for you to adjust, coming from a different living situation like you do, but please try to have a bit more consideration."

"I shall endeavor to keep it in mind," Loki said solemnly, fighting to keep a straight face. "Good night, Captain Rogers."

With that, he shut the door in his face. Then he went to lie down on Thor's bed, pulled a pillow over his face, and gave in to howls of laughter.

* * *

><p>The next morning Loki awoke still in Thor's bed, still in Thor's body. He grinned as he rolled out of the bed and flung the curtains wide to greet the new day. He also had not worn any of Thor's clothes to bed the previous night, but he took the wolf whistle that this elicited from the passersby as his just due.<p>

Thus reminded, however, his next act was to retire to the bathroom for the next hour with a razor specially enchanted to stay sharp, and relieve his new body of its layer of smelly, itchy, irritating hair. In his own body, Loki did not grow hair on his face or body, a fact which irritated him in principle but was _much_ more hygenic and convenient in passing. Somewhat reluctantly Loki left a layer of curly golden hair on his face, and on the tops of his forearms, so that his teammates would have no reason to suspect the sudden change of style. With that completed, and his bare legs much more comfortable in Thor's leggings, he ventured down to the kitchen to find food.

He had pulled out most of the contents of the kitchen and arrayed it around him on the countertops and granite island, happily eating his way through courses of breakfast and non-breakfast foods. Truly, while not comparing to anything on Asgard, the provisions stacked by Stark were of finer quality than any other Loki had been provided with on this dismal world. Fresh waffles with real syrup and crisp cider-cured bacon, mounds of fluffy eggs cooked with salsa and fine cheese, melting ice-cream, slices of roast beef and crisp vegetables on nut-flavored brown bread made a distinct step up from the tough unappetizing rations and stringy half-rotted provisions Loki had subsisted on in his various lairs.

Steve came to a halt when he reached the doorway to the kitchen and saw Loki surrounded by his ravages, but Loki was secure enough in his knowledge of Thor's breakfasting habits to know he was far from at the limits of what Thor would normally consume. He even had an opened package of pop-tarts on the counter beside him for verisimilitude (although he had not lowered himself to actually eating one of the horrid things.)

"Morning, Thor," Steve ventured, and there was a tentative peace offering in it after the scolding of last night. "Hope you slept well last night."

Loki beamed at the man, and did not bother to swallow his mouthful of eggs and roast beef before he answered, "Good morrow, Captain Rogers." Steve shuddered and looked away, but did not comment, so Loki cleared his mouth and added, "I did indeed sleep well."

Much better than he had slept in months, in fact. If the bed was a bit firmer and springier than Loki would have preferred for himself, well, it had it all over bare mattresses with the springs poking through - or simply sleeping in snatched moments on chairs most of the time, as Loki preferred to do when he was required to keep his guard up. As he typically did, when among his 'friends.'

His thoughts were banished by Captain Rogers' voice. "Wow, quite a spread you've got here, huh?" Steve said in an upbeat, jocular tone.

"Indeed, it takes a lot of fuel to maintain a warrior's strength," Loki agreed. A banal observation, but not an untrue one. Truly, Loki had underestimated just how much stoking with fuel Thor's overmuscled body would require. Even in his own form he at enough for three humans, more if he had been spellcasting something particularly strenuous - but Thor's appetite had always put his to shame.

"I guess you Asgardians have to eat a lot to keep your strength up," Steve said, his voice fading as he disappeared behind the refrigerator door to rummage for his own breakfast. Not that he would find much left to satisfy him - Loki had made sure of that.

Still, something in Steve's wording gave Loki an idea, and he seized on it. "You are not wrong, my friend, but the word you used is not the correct one," he said, and took another huge bite of the waffles.

Steve reappeared above the edge of the refrigerator door, his brow knit in bafflement. "Sorry?" he asked.

"You said 'Asgardians,' but you spoke of my biology, " Loki said. "Just so that you know, 'Asgardian' is not the proper term for one of my race."

"It isn't?" Steve blinked.

"Nay. Asgard is the name of our city, and as the greatest city on the realm, the name of our realm as well. As one hailing from the city-realm of Asgard, it is true that I am Asgardian," and that was actually true in a limited sense of the word; he had indeed been raised in Asgard, "but that is not my race, any more than 'American' describes your race."

"Oh." Steve blinked. "Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. So, what's your race of people called? Uh, if you don't mind my asking."

"Not at all," Loki replied. "We are the Aesir, and it is from our race that the city takes the name, the 'gardr' or keep of the Aesir. There are a few other scattered settlements of Aesir among the other realms - mostly in Vanaheim - but those who live in Asgard, are Asgardians."

"So you're an Aesir." Steve nodded. "Got it."

"Almost, but not quite," Loki said, enjoying himself immensely. "Aesir is the name for the race, or for many men together. A man among my people, such as myself, would be an Ass."

A beat. "An ass?" Steve repeated uncertainly.

"Indeed," Loki beamed. "If I may humbly say, you will find no finer specimen of Ass than myself." He bit enthusiastically into another slice of roast beef.

"Oh... I guess... right," Steve said, at a loss for words. Clearly he was trying to determine if his companion was serious, or setting him up for some fall; yet knowing Thor, he could not imagine such deceit from him. It was more than worth keeping a straight face just to witness his mystification.

"And now that you know, I am sure that you will take care to use the proper address for me in the future, yes?" Loki said cheerfully. "Call me what I am, a great ass. I will be glad to hear of it."

Fortunately for the Captain, he was saved from having to reply by the entrance of Hawkeye, who wandered into the kitchen with a dazed expression worthy of a shell-shocked veteran of the Ice Wars. Or, to be more accurate, a sleepwalker.

"Good morning, my friend Clint!" Loki boomed, his voice calculated for maximum blare. Clint reeled on his feet, and even Steve flinched and glared at him, but before he either of them could respond, he forestalled them by adding "I have brewed coffee, it is on the machine over by the sink."

"Oh thank God," Clint moaned, making a beeline for the promised coffee.

"You are welcome," Loki said modestly, taking the compliment for himself. The coffee was freshly brewed and steaming gently, enticingly.

Clint poured himself a huge mug of it and took a deep swig. The next moment, he did a spittake that decorated his mouthful of coffee all over the sink, counter and floor. (Loki himself was safely out of range - he had measured it.) "What the fuck?" he swore blearily, peering down into his cup in the deepest betrayal.

"Is something amiss?" Loki asked innocently.

"This... is... _decaf,_" Clint said, his voice making it into the most horrific of sins. "This isn't _real_ coffee, what the fuck is this even doing in this house? I need my caffeine, dammit! You know I can't function in the morning without my caffeine!"

"Oh. My apologies," Loki said, summoning as much insincere remorse as he could project. "My people have no need of such artificial crutches to render themselves alert and ready for battle, no matter the circumstance. But even if they did, I fear your 'caffeine' is far too weak and trivial to have an effect upon my physique."

Clint squinted at him blearily, muttering 'blasphemy' under his breath over and over again.

"And thus," Loki concluded, "I could not tell the difference between this 'decaf' coffee and your normal coffee. Truly I am sorry, my friend." He really wasn't sorry. Clint's palpable anguish was even more fun than Steve's reaction had been.

Clint glared at him another moment, then let it drop with a groan. "It's not a big deal, Clint," Steve offered, playing peacemaker. "Just throw it out and start another pot."

Loki watched with morbid fascination as the archer groped his way around the kitchen, near-blind from the puffy-eyed squinting, and prepared another pot of coffee on the machine. Once it was burbling away he shuffled over to the refrigerator and opened it, rummaging around before he emerged triumphant with the carton of milk.

Which, of course, was empty. The tragic horror that crossed his face as he shook the open mouth of the carton over his coffee cup to no avail was truly not to be missed. "Thor," Clint croaked, staring up into the empty mouth of the vessel. "Did you drink the last of the milk and not get more?"

"Did I?" Loki blinked in utter guilelessness. "How careless of me that must have been."

Clint threw the empty carton into the sink. "Thor, you're an ass," he grumbled.

"Yes!" Loki beamed. "That is exactly right! I had faith that you would get the nomenclature correct in the end!"

Steve groaned. Clint gave him a one-fingered salute and shuffled back to his coffee-maker, watching with hypnotic fascination as it dripped slowly down into the pots. Loki finished polishing off his breakfast and excused himself, wondering as he went when the others would think to question where all their eggs had gone.

At the very least, not more than a few days before they'd start to notice the smell.

* * *

><p>Captain Rogers had weighed Loki down with a list of chores that needed to be done before the day's end. Under normal circumstances, Loki would have been incensed to be ordered about like a common domestic - but these were hardly normal circumstances. It amused him more than was warranted, perhaps, to imagine Thor on his knees in a maid's costume, scrubbing the floor. For himself - well, he would not be Loki if he could not turn even an unpleasant chore into an opportunity.<p>

Some of the chores on the list were for Tony Stark, who was currently locked away in his workstation tinkering. Loki knew the hallmarks of obsession, knew what it was to be so deeply in the grip of a project that things like food or sleep became incidental distractions; he could almost feel a twinge of admiration for the mortal. (Almost.) After a moment's thought, Loki took a few of the decorative bits of magnet and brightly colored plastic from the side of the refrigerator, and descended to Stark's laboratory.

Once there, he let himself carefully inside and looked around, quickly taking in the layout of the place. If the noises and faint muttering words were any indication, the mortal was just out of sight over a bulky bank of equipment. Holographic screens flickered and glowed around him.

Grinning to himself, Loki stepped up to the side of a bank of machinery and firmly tacked the chores-list to the metal side, affixing them in place with his borrowed magnets. Just as a precaution, he used a small bit of magic to exponentially increase the electromagnetic field of the small bits of metal, guaranteeing that they would extend far enough to affect the machinery inside. Then he let himself quietly out of the lab again. Judging by the rising volume of curses behind him, his plants were already having an effect, although no doubt it would be some time before Stark figured out the cause of his chagrin.

* * *

><p>There was not really enough room in the underground chamber to pace; only a few strides between one wall and the next, the floor cluttered with the detritus of broken furniture. Yet pace Thor did, round and round about the cold stone floor until he was nearly ready to faint from dizziness. He had called to Mjolnir many times now, each time with increasingly failing hope; if she had not come yet, she was unlikely to come upon further summons. It was a faint hope to begin with; the spell that summons Mjolnir back to his hand is encoded to match his own biorhythms. Trapped in this wrong body, the enchantment that tied Mjolnir to him would no longer recognize him.<p>

Aside from pacing, there was little else for Thor to do to entertain himself. The room was simple and bare, rock walls and floor and ceiling and only a rickety chair, a thin mattress and a corroded silver mirror as furniture. Thor wondered if Loki used it as a hideout, or a base for planning in the past; the furniture did remind him somewhat of Loki's old rooms in Asgard. His brother had ever been largely indifferent to the comforts of furnishings.

Indifferent to other comforts, as well. There was no food in this tiny underground bubble, and that worry niggled in the back of Thor's mind, though it would not become a serious problem for a long time yet. His people could live many months without food, up to a year before starvation begins to truly degrade the body; and though he is somewhat hungry already, it has not yet progressed beyond slight discomfort.

There _was_ a small spring of cold, clear water running down one wall, pooling in a corner before disappearing out some tiny drain. Thor slakes his thirst with it, and is grateful that the water appears to be pure. Thor is not sure what to make of this mixed message, leaving him with water but no food. Thirst would kill him long before hunger did; does this mean that Loki wants to keep him alive, intends to come back for him later for some unknown purpose? But then why leave no food? Unless he means to tame Thor with hunger. Unless he means to subject him to the slow, drawn-out death of starvation, Loki's final and cruellest revenge. But the body he currently inhabits is Loki's own; surely he would not want to damage his own flesh so? For that, he would need to bear a great hate for Thor _and_ for himself.

Or maybe he'd just forgotten. Thor honestly couldn't say at this point which was the most likely option.

For all the precariousness of his current situation, it was not himself that Thor feared for the most. In the face of this reminder of Loki's cruelty and ruthlessness, he was more anxious than anything for the safety of his teammates and friends. Loki had never cared for the mortal heroes known as the Avengers; they had foiled his plots too many times but even beyond that, he had always displayed a virulent hostility towards them that, to Thor's centuries-trained eye as a brother, smacked of _jealousy._ Whether he was jealous of them for the attention and loyalty bestowed on them by Thor, or jealous of Thor for having such stalwart companions to guard his back, Thor had never been clear.

Whatever the reasons for his hostility were not as important as what means he might take to act on it, now that Thor was safely out of the way. The Avengers were strong, capable warriors, but even the most vigilant of warriors could not be on guard at all times - would not be on guard in their own home base, from those they thought to be their _friends._

It was _worse_ than Thor merely not being around to protect them. Thor had fostered ties of goodwill and trust with the Avengers, bonds of trust that Loki would now use without ruth or mercy. Thor writhed in an agony of guilt and fear, his brain coming up with more and more horrific fates to be visited upon his friends in his absence. Not only in his absence, but bearing _his_ face, the last face they might ever see if Loki turned on them. Who knew what inventive torments Loki might be inflicting upon the Avengers in his absence?

* * *

><p>"I have returned from my mission!" Loki called out as he crossed into the Avengers mansion, slinging a brace of plastic sacks onto the table. He carefully amplified his voice so that his next words would be clearly audible to everyone in the house. "Lady Natasha, as per our friend Steve's request, I have purchased a great quantity of these so called 'tampons' for your use, though I know not to what purpose you may put them!"<p>

Loki was glad that he had Aesir hearing right now, because no mortal ears could have caught the delicious responses that provoked; the comical thump on the floor from Clint's room, the actual literal sputtering noise of Steve Rogers from the kitchen next door. He couldn't see their faces but _oh,_ he could imagine them.

And here came the Black Widow herself, appearing from out of a shadow in response to her summons. Her face was carefully blank, but Loki could read the irritation that she was trying to conceal - from anyone else she might have succeeded, but Loki was a master of deception. He kept his own expression brainlessly pleasant and benevolent, pointing to the plastic sack containing the items of offense.

"I thought perhaps they were bandages," he said helpfully, "so I got the ones that said 'EXTRA HEAVY.' Will those be sufficient in capacity?"

He was rewarded with seeing the crease between her eyebrows deepen, a muscle in her cheek twitch with the annoyance she couldn't quite suppress. "Thanks, Thor," she said in a carefully neutral voice, and collecting the tampons from the coffee table. She gave him one more intense look - he kept the pleasant expression up perfectly - before withdrawing to whatever cranny she had come from.

He barely refrained from snickering as he exited the room in the other direction. Tormenting the Avengers was such hungry work, and he thought there was still some sliced meats in the refrigerator that he had not yet spoiled.

* * *

><p>~to be continued...<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Loki returned to Avengers Mansion in the middle of the morning, feeling a strange combination of buoyant triumph and chagrin. He had prepared a deft deflection if anyone asked where he had been all night - "A true gentleman does not kiss and tell, friend Stark!" - but as it turned out, it was never necessary to use it.

The mansion was in an uproar, as busy as a stirred-up wasp's nest. Loki found all of the Avengers gathered in one of the large media rooms, most of them in their combat-dress, locked in heated argument about something.

Loki came to the doorway and stopped, looking at the disarrayed scene. "My friends, have we been called to battle?" he boomed out, dropping into their council like a rock into a small pond. Heads turned towards him.

"Yes, we have," the Black Widow said, at the same time Captain Rogers said "We aren't sure yet."

"Yet you are sure enough to assemble in your combat garb," Loki said. He stepped into the chamber and seated himself on one of the divans - too low for Thor's height, really, but at least it meant he was not obliged to share one of the larger couches with anyone else.

"This audio clip could be anything," Tony Stark said impatiently. "It could be some guy's pizza order, for God's sake."

Natasha turned to Steve; it seemed that Loki had interrupted an on-going argument. "My contacts wouldn't have brought this to me if it wasn't important," she said firmly.

Steve rubbed his forehead, looking harassed. "It's not that I don't believe you, Nat," he said. "But without any more information about what the people in that clip is saying, we can't take any further action."

"Can't you give us any context at all?" Clint asked, looking at Natasha.

She looked uncharacteristically uncertain, chewing on her lower lip slightly. "Most likely, it's in an old rural dialect of northern Estonian," she said. "I can't give you any more than that without endangering their covers and honestly, nothing more than that would help."

So the Black Widow still maintained ties among the European supervillain underworld, Loki thought. Very interesting. He wondered idly if any of the Widow's mysterious contacts were the same ones that Loki kept up with - from the other direction, of course.

"And do _you_ speak this dialect of rural Estonian?" Steve asked her. She shook her head.

"I thought you spoke like every language in Europe," Tony complained. "I thought that was your big thing - international spy of mystery, polyglot and super-infiltrator!"

She glared at him. "There are over five thousand spoken languages in the world today, less than half of which have any written form," she snapped. "You'll have to excuse me for not being proficient in _all_ of them!"

"Why can't you just use one of your computers to translate it?" Clint asked. "They've got all sorts of translating software on the market, and you're up to your eyebrows in super-advanced tech you don't share with anyone."

Tony threw his hands in the air. "Translating dinky little unknown languages has not exactly been my priority!" he half-shouted. "I was a little more interested in making sure my targeting systems don't blow friendly targets out of the air, all right?"

"Besides, it's not that simple," Bruce put in to Clint. "It's true that there are some text-to-speech computer programs, and some translation software, but both are severely limited. Computers just don't have the capability yet to pick up all the nuances of human speech the way the human ear does, or to fill in unintelligible sections by context. Computers can transfer text-to-speech _if_ they know what vocabulary set they should be using; or they can translate between languages _if_ they have a clear written record of what they should be translating and a dictionary in the target language to work from. We don't have a clear record of the text _or_ a known vocabulary set to work with."

"Well, aren't there any electronic dictionaries for bumfuck-nowhere-Estonian, then?" Clint asked.

"Nope," Tony said. Clint mimed squeezing motions in the air to express his exasperation.

"If I might volunteer my services to help," Loki put in, feigning diffidence. Really, watching them all bicker and run around like chickens with their heads chopped off was just too funny, but this was starting to get repetitive. "You need a passage translated, is that not so?"

They turned to him. "Yes, Thor, that's exactly it," Steve replied. "But Estonian interpreters aren't exactly lining the street corners. It could take days to locate one."

"We don't have days!" Natasha protested.

"I believe I might be able to translate it," Loki said mildly. "If you would be so good as to play the passage back for me."

"You?" Tony stared at him incredulously. "Let me get this straight, the _literal extraterrestial_ thinks he has a better chance of translating obscure Earth languages than us natives?"

"You speak Estonian?" Natasha asked him intently, ignoring Tony.

"I speak all languages," Loki explained offhandedly. "The All-Tongue is the mother of all spoken communications. Any language which is a branch of the All, if I but hear it, I will comprehend."

The Avengers looked at each other. "Did any of you follow that?" Bruce asked.

"What the hell, it's worth a shot," Clint said.

"It doesn't look like we have any better ideas," Steve said.

"I still don't see how this is going to work," Tony complained as he brought out a small handheld device which apparently contained the audio passage in question. Loki spared a moment of pity for them to have such primitive computing technology. Any child's recorder in Asgard could have easily completed the task that had so confounded them; then again, no child of Asgard would have had need of such a task in the first place.

The quality of the audio clip was bad, static fuzzing in the background and increasing in bursts whenever a voice spoke. There were three men - one on the first side of the line, two on the other - discussing something in clipped, urgent tones. The third one only joined in at the end, giving some kind of formal greeting before signing off.

"I see," Loki said.

"Well?" Tony asked.

Loki turned to them. "There will be an attack on the Long Island Sound Bridge," he said, "at noon on this date. They plan to bring a great force of self-automating devices, with the capacity for both missile and energy weapons, and it is their intention to clear a great swathe of space on each end of the bridge before claiming it as their own. We must make haste."

There was a stunned silence in the media room as the Avengers gaped at him; Loki tried very hard not to smirk in superior triumph. It was broken only by Natasha poking Tony with a sideways elbow and muttering, "_Told_ you they wouldn't have brought it to me if it wasn't important."

"Right," Steve said, jolting back into action. "Good thing you got here when you did, Thor. Avengers, assemble!"

* * *

><p>Despite the forewarning - and Loki thought he had given them <em>plenty<em> of forewarning; there was no way in which this was _his_ fault - they didn't quite make it to the bridge before the chaos broke out. Either they saw the Avengers coming and moved up their timetable (two flying superheroes and a hovering jet were not exactly unobtrusive) or someone in their party had a ludicrously flexible definition of _midday._

Either way. They were just cruising in over the Sound when a tugboat that had been lurking inoffensively around the mouth of the bay suddenly opened and unfolded to reveal a much larger vessel that had mostly been hidden underwater. The waters of the bay around it churned madly as it yawned open, and further open, until it appeared as a black pit against the silvery surface of the water from this distance. And out of that open mouth flew a swarm of glinting metal fliers, as thick and angry as a cloud of wasps disturbed from their nest.

"Oh no," Tony said almost immediately, his voice carried over the primitive communications device that everyone on the team wore. "No no no no no. You have got to be fucking kidding me, what are _these things_ doing here? They were supposed to be scrapped!"

"You recognize these things? What are they?" Steve's voice came over the comm next, saving Loki from having to ask, and possibly reveal his ignorance over an event Thor should already have known about. Loki knew everything there was to know about his brother's childhood (and most of his adulthood,) but his life with the Avengers was a chapter of that book that was mostly closed to Loki.

It was Natasha who answered. "These are the Hammer Tech drones designed by Ivan Vanko, which went rogue and shot up Stark Expo a few years ago," she said. "Pepper and I managed to get into their programming and shut them down remotely, Hammer was arrested, and Vanko killed in the firefight. All of the Hammer drones were taken away by SHIELD's cleanup agents, and were listed as destroyed."

"They don't look particularly destroyed to me!" Tony said angrily. Loki was not in the least bit surprised. Such weapons would be far too valuable to merely consign to the scrap heap. Any practical defense agency, if it was not too overburdened with a hero's morality, would have done the same.

All the while the Avengers had been nattering, the metal drones had been pouring out of the opened vessel. At last they seemed to come to the end of them, the whole flock of them flitting around in a complicated interweaving mid-air dance as they streamed steadily towards the coastline. From the empty mouth of the vessel behind them, one last figure emerged slowly from the darkness: head, shoulders, arms and a bulky torso.

At first Loki thought it might be a giant, but giants had not been heard of on Midgard since the All-Father had repelled the Jotun invasion over a thousand years before. It was as large as a Frost Giant but twice as big around, metallic and gleaming, but not quite like it was wearing armor. More like it _was_ the armor, and Loki saw a dark round bubble of reinforced glass in the chest that he thought might have been a cockpit. It moved and swiveled on mechanical joints, rotating to face them as it cleared the edge of the hold.

There was a jolt of movement as the platform rose to the level of the cargo ship and locked into place. Then the armor seemed to come to life, a multitude of weapons or tools unfolding from its back and arms and humming with ominous energy. A metal horn emerged from the armor's 'head' and pointed in their direction, and a voice crackled to life over it.

_"So you have arrived, Avengers!" _the booming, crackling voice came over the loudspeaker._ "But too late! My army of metal men has already deploying, and nothing can stop them after beginning! You now face... The Artificer!"_

"The Artificer? You seriously couldn't come up with a better name than that?" Tony complained over the comm. "More like _the plagiarizer,_ you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I feel like this whole swarm-of-mooks-over-New York thing has been done before," Clint commented, nocking an explosive arrow to his bow and letting loose. The arrow whistled across the distance and connected with a flying metal target, but the ensuing explosion cleared to show the target still airborne, only a bit rattled.

"With more panache, too," Tony said, and Loki sent him a brief but silent appreciation. At least _someone_ on this team had a sense of style. "But I was thinking more of Vanko than the Chitauri. All this guy did is dust off Vanko's old discards and set them loose again! Seriously, he couldn't have thought of something even remotely original?"

"That's a question," Steve said. "Do we know whether these are the same drones, salvaged, or new robots built along the same design?"

"Does it actually matter?" Clint wanted to know.

"Well, it might," Bruce disagreed. "If they're repurposed, they probably have about the same abilities and durability as the originals, plus whatever upgrades their new owners managed to install. If they're only based off the original models, then we have no idea what their real capability is - they could be weaker, but they could be stronger, too."

"It seems to me that the only way to take the measure of our foe is to meet them in battle," Loki put in, growing bored by all the talking. Besides, it was a Thor sort of thing to say, always eager to rush forward into combat without bothering to stop and make plans first. So _idiotic._ Oh, and he ought to throw in something teamworky and boastful, as well. "Whatever their strengths, they cannot possibly stand against the combined might of all the Avengers!"

"You said it," Steve replied, and Loki rolled his eyes, unseen by any of the other Avengers. "All right, men, let's get started!"

"Excuse me?" Natasha said.

"And ladies," Steve added hastily.

The man in the armored suit had continued monologuing while they debated strategy. Something about how New York had served for too long as the slaughtering grounds for penniless Eastern European immigrants, who came to America in search of a promising future and met only with prejudice, discrimination and exploitation, and how now the tables had turned, something something retribution something justice. Loki did not really bother to listen, because he honestly didn't care. And he had other considerations to worry about.

Steve Rogers, ever conscientious, had called ahead to the thickly populated communities surrounding the battle site and had them evacuated. Overall Loki decided he was more pleased than annoyed by this consideration. On one hand, that meant there would be less witnesses to his power, valor, and cunning in battle, and consequently less praise and adoration to result from it. On the other hand, this way he was less likely to be called on to hurtle out of his way to protect some idiot mortal child who hadn't the sense to run when eighty tons of masonry came speeding down on their heads, nor have to face the disappointment and recriminations of the Avengers if he should forget to do so. It was one less thing he had to worry about and as the battle quickly grew heated, he had more than enough on his mind.

It wasn't that the metal foes they faced were particularly dangerous - they weren't. Even the large number of them threatened merely to be tedious, not daunting. But Loki had to juggle the problems not only of fighting against the mechanical monsters - while defending himself from all directions _and_ having to at least pretend to guard the Avengers' weak flanks - while simultaneously pretending to be Thor.

He'd fought with (and sometimes against) his brother enough times over the centuries that he knew Thor's battle tactics like the back of his hand. He could have mimicked them in his sleep - and Thor's own muscles remembered their training, which helped. But he had to suppress his _own_ battle instincts, which were geared for a very different style of combat, at the same time.

Worse, the plain fact of it was that he simply didn't have all of Thor's complement of powers. He had Thor's body, but the Mjolnir that he carried was only a skin-deep replica. He was forced to use magic to substitute for the things Thor could do with Mjolnir that he could not - flying from one foe to the next, jolts of magical energy disguised as lightning, powerful force blasts taking the place of mighty hammer blows - and subtle illusion to cover the gaps. It was a good thing the Avengers were preoccupied with their own battles, or there was a very real possibility they might have noticed.

As it was, the glimpses Loki had seen of the others locked in combat showed him that the Avengers were having a hard time of it. Unlike the battle against the Chitauri (some elite superadvanced infantry _they_ had been) there were no convenient fleshy parts for primitive sharp edges to dig into. The drones were encased in smooth, solid metal that seemed to have very few weak points, and could take a great deal of punishment before they began to falter. The Captain's shield bounced harmlessly off them, as did Hawkeye's arrows. Black Widow had vanished from sight some time ago, presumably having found the uselessness of her own handguns against such armored foes.

Only Iron Man and the Hulk seemed to be making any headway against their foes; the suit's weapons could melt through the outer casings, and the Hulk's mindless strength was enough to crush them like toys. But the green beast had trouble getting his hands on them in the first place, having to leap in the air and snatch at the flitting things, and there were too many for Tony to handle alone.

Abruptly, the gloating monologue from the cargo barge stopped, replaced by a wordless screech of rage and a torrent of verbal obscenities (which, judging by the lack of reaction from the other Avengers in response, Loki guessed had been delivered in the speaker's native language.) That too quickly cut off, replaced by a resounding silence.

After a moment, Natasha came back on the comm. "Team, I've secured the enemy's control room," she said in a calm voice. Loki could hear a very faint background of male swearing from somewhere beyond - possibly below - her location. "But there's a problem. I can't seem to find any way to switch these things off."

"I can come down there and hack into it," Tony offered immediately. Loki noted with approval that he was a man of intelligence, not only brute strength. "Take a look at the code..."

"No, Iron Man, we need you in the sky," the Captain negated immediately. There were still over two dozen of the drones left, and they had learned to hover out of reach of the Hulk.

"Besides, I don't think it's a question of hacking into it," Natasha went on, her voice slightly worried. "I don't think there's anything _to_ hack. There's no central command computer at all. I've shorted out everything mechanical in here except my comm and they're still going. I don't know where he's hidden the central command module."

"You won't find one, tyrants!" the background voice of The Artificer came faintly over the comm. "My creations are far too sophisticated for that - they need no central control! Every one of them has its mission programmed into its base code, and they will tear this city to the ground! You cannot possibly stop them all!"

Clint groaned over his communicator. "You mean, we're going to have to hunt down and destroy _every one_ of these things?" he moaned. "That's gonna take all _day - _ if we're lucky."

"RAAAAAAAAARR," the Hulk said. "SMASH AND SMASH!"

"If that's what we have to do, then we'll do it," Steve said grimly. Yes, he had been a real soldier, had he not - one with enough experience to know that battles didn't last only for a few spectacular hours and then wrap themselves up neatly. Real battles went on for hours, days, weeks, or more - without rest or succor or medical aid, sometimes. It was one of the _many reasons_ that Loki was not fond of them.

"Hold, my friends," he said in Thor's voice. Natasha's comment about having shorted out the Artificer's suit had given him an idea. It was incredible to think that such a simple strategy would work, and yet... if Midgardian technology was really so simple, that even magnets could disrupt a computer's function... "I believe I may have a plan. Clear away from the ground below, shield-brothers; I would not wish for you to be harmed."

The Avengers complied, though slowly and reluctantly for Loki's liking. Negligently Loki swung his false-Mjolnir at a nearby fire-cache, bursting the blue-painted cap off the thick water main. Water began to pour out at an uncontrollable rate, spreading a dark wet puddle over the ground. Loki moved on, breaking open two other pipes to start it flooding before he theatrically swung his hammer and leapt aloft with a quick surge of magic.

The drones flew swift and high, but with a clear and definite mathematical pattern to their movements. Loki had seen it when they had first arrayed themselves, and had studied it throughout the course of the fight. Despite the fire and destruction they had been raining down from above, they hadn't deviated much from their flight plan - _could not _deviate, perhaps, if the Artificer's claim about pre-coded instructions was true. Midgardian technology was not advanced enough yet to create machines that could really think their way through innovative tactics - at least not in machines small enough to pack such weaponry and armor and still fly. All of their processing space seemed to be devoted to combat, and very little leftover to spare for navigation.

The upshot of it was that Loki could easily predict their flight patterns - and if he could predict them, then he could place himself in the right position to intercept them. He flew from one point to another in a tight, precise geometrical array, setting up lines of fierce updraft and downdraft behind him to bend the air currents of this arena to his will. Each time he met one of the drones he gave it a fierce force-blow to knock it out of the air, directing it towards the earth and following it up with a blast of air to keep it pointed in the right direction. One by one, he met the drones in mid-air, and sent them splashing into the spreading puddle of water below.

When the last of them had been knocked from the sky, Loki jumped back down among the rubble of a ruined building. He'd have to move fast, before either the drones retook to the air or any of his idiot teammates interfered. Loki raised his false-Mjolnir theatrically high, creating an illusion of fierce shimmering light building in the head of the hammer and in the sky directly above him. While all eyes were drawn to the flashy light-show, he quickly with his other hand found the cut and broken end of an active power-line and knocked it into the water.

The resulting detonation was quite impressive, and probably would have hurt if Loki had been in his own body, but Thor's electrical resistance dwarfed his own (and pretty much anyone's, really.) Thousands of volts of electricity snapped through the conducting puddle, frying the metal-cased drones where they stood half-submerged in the water. Some of them jittered wildly as their circuits overloaded, some simply froze where they stood - one actually exploded.

By the time the powerline shorted out and the mortal circuit went dead, the sky had been cleared, and the square before him was littered with the fried and smoking ruins of the metal drones. Loki stood over all of it, preening in triumph.

"What say you, my friends?" Loki called out to the other Avengers, who were only now beginning to creep stunned towards the aftermath. "A fine and invigorating diversion, was it not?"

"What just happened?" Natasha demanded.

"Thor... that was..." Steve stammered over the comm. "Um. Very impressive. Good... good work. Thanks."

"You couldn't even have left any for the rest of us?" Tony said incredulously. "Not even one?"

"NO HULK SMASH!" the Hulk complained.

"Remind me again," Clint muttered _sotto voce,_ "why, if we have the God of Thunder on the team, _does anyone else need to be on the team."_

* * *

><p>After that followed the cleanup, which Loki managed to sidle out of by volunteering to make a statement to the human media. Steve, despite his long history in PR, didn't really enjoy being the center of attention; the two assassins preferred to stay out of the limelight as much as possible, and Dr. Banner was not yet presentable again after reverting back to his human shape. It was usually Tony in charge of the press conferences, yet this time Loki had managed to deflect him by suggesting he examine The Artificer's destroyed technology for clues that might lead back to Ivan Vanko.<p>

That left Loki, as it should be, at the center of all the reporters' slightly awed admiration. Loki drew on his best skalding skills to retell the story of the battle, keeping it more or less true to the facts. The old Thor would have bragged outrageously about his (admittedly very impressive) feats, but Loki was given to understand that Thor had since then learned _modesty._ Well, Loki could feign modesty as well; and skillfully so, affecting just enough humble deference to his teammates as to seem like he was giving them all the credit, when in fact he was really only drawing attention to just how critical his own part in the battle had been.

As it _should_ be. Loki glowed, with the light of all the eyes and microphones and cameras on him, admiring him, _praising him._ It was _his_ cleverness and quick thinking that had won the day, his magic, even if it had been masquerading as Thor's might. Loki was under no illusions (well, not counting the false Mjolnir,) he knew that the tide of sentiment would turn swiftly against him if it was widely known that Loki, God of Mischief, had been behind the days events. No matter how many villains he thwarted, or cities he saved, if Loki wore his true guise he knew people would be quick to point fingers of blame and disapproval at him. Perhaps for the damage incurred to the city's water mains, or the surrounding buildings, perhaps not, but they would have found _some_ way to transmute blessing into blame.

But not today. Today, he sat bulwarked behind Thor's imposing glory and reputation and fame, and received the praise that was his due. What Loki would be blamed for, Thor was exalted for, and at any other time that would have left Loki feeling bitter; but not today. _He_ knew, even if no one else did, who it _really_ was who'd saved them today, and it was a secret he savored like a particularly fine vintage of wine. He, Loki, made far better use of Thor's unearned gifts than the big brute himself ever had.

Loki was still riding the high of that press conference all the way back to Avengers Mansion; the blatant sulking of Clint in the Quinjet on the return journey only gave the sweetness an added bite. "Do not worry, my valiant archer friend," Loki told him, as they landed, making his voice as kind and helpful as he could. "Another day and surely it will be your talents that shine and win the battle for us. Are there, perhaps, any supervillains out there with a particular pigeon theme?"

Clint only growled and stalked off. Loki stifled laughter, and sauntered after him into the mansion.

"So, hey, that was some good work you did today," Tony said, catching up with Loki and giving him a clap on the shoulder. Loki turned to face him, a smile on his face, more than ready to receive more accolades. "I realized after a minute what you were doing with the flight patterns, that was some damn quick thinking. Of course, I would have recognized the algorithms myself in a few more minutes..."

"No doubt," Loki said pleasantly. "And how would you have reached them all, to take them out in one blow?"

Tony paused, considering it. "Probably I would have found some way to generate an electromagnetic pulse on a wave they were sensitive to," he said after a minute, "jamming their navigation and sending them crashing into the ground. Or just a plain and simple EMP blast, although that would have taken out half the electrical infrastructure of Long Island at the same time, so it's probably just as well."

Loki nodded approvingly. That was clever thinking, strategic and efficient, and he said so. "There is more to you than meets the eye, Man of Iron."

Tony grinned at him from the open face-plate of his suit. His eyes were quite striking, really, a deep liquid brown framed by heavy black lashes. "Well, Clint didn't quite have it right, you know," he said. "It's not just _you_ that they need to have on the team. It's you _and_ me - you bringing the magic, me bringing the tech - that really makes it pointless to have anyone else on the team."

Loki laughed out loud, delighted by the little mortal's hubris. Normally he had very little patience for braggadacio, but Tony did it with such unapologetic chutzpah, such _style._ And Loki considered feats of the mind much more worthy of boasts than mere feats of muscle, too.

Tony squeezed Loki's shoulder one more time and dropped it, wandering off towards one of his workshops. On a sudden impulse, Loki followed after him. The mortal's company was amusing, and Loki wanted more of it.

And not just for his clever banter, either. Loki watched with an appreciative eye as the auto-dismantler stripped away the armor, piece by piece, revealing the black jumpsuit underneath. Even though the powered armor did most of the heavy lifting for him, Tony Stark did not by any means neglect his physical training, and the results were impressive - for a mortal. Combined with those pretty eyes and that clever brain (and with Loki's mood still riding the high from the press conference earlier) he was taken with a sudden impulse to go further.

"It was a good battle, and a good victory," Loki said, watching Tony intently. "Come, my friend, and let us celebrate... together."

Tony turned around quickly, barely masking his sudden double-take in the movement. His eyes searched Loki carefully. "Uh, you mean you wanna get drunk together?" he asked carefully. "Or spar, or what?"

Loki took a few steps forward, backing Tony up against the nearest wall. He put out a hand on the wall and leaned on it, smirking down at the smaller mortal. "Or what, indeed," he drawled. "Tony Stark, you are a most handsome man, and I of course have no equal in the arena of passion. I have lain with many a fine warrior in the revelry after a battle, men as well as women, and from the stories I've heard in the gossiping chronicles of the world, I understand the same is true for you."

"Whoa," Tony said, and he held up his arms in front of him in a broad X, blocking Loki from leaning any closer. "Hang on, hang on, let's rewind this a bit. Where did _this_ come from, Thor? You've never seemed interested in me before. Now suddenly you're all over me like the media on a missing white girl story?"

Loki frowned, but leaned back a little bit so that he was not looming quite so close over his chosen prey. "I meant no insult or disrespect," he said a little stiffly. "On Asgard it is no dishonor, for men to lie together, and neither may be unmanned by it if they are both sufficiently brave and valorous warriors. Is it not the same, on Midgard?"

"Okay well that's pretty flattering," Tony said. "And, well, you're not _wrong_ exactly. I've done this rodeo before, on both sides of the fence. But there's a big difference between being attracted to people of both genders, and being attracted to _every person_ of both genders. Thor, you're a great guy, and a wonderful friend and teammate, but you just don't do it for me that way."

Loki stared at Tony, blinking furiously, barely aware of his own mouth hanging open. He was certain his borrowed ears must have deceived him. Not attracted to Thor? _Not attracted_ to _Thor?!_ Such a thing had never happened before, in all of Loki's frustrated centuries-long experience. _Everyone_ liked Thor, and preferred him to any other; women above all, but even the men who were willing to lie on both sides of the sheets raised admiring eyes to the golden prince and war-leader above all other men. The idea that someone would willingly say _no_ to _Thor_ was not even a concept on his radar.

"Why not?" slipped out of his mouth, while he was too stunned to watch himself.

"Oh boy, this got awkward. Okay, well." Tony blew out a sigh, and ran his fingers through his hair. "There's two reasons, mostly. Either of them would be enough on their own, but there are two. Number one: I don't date coworkers. I tried that once with Pepper, and it all ended very, very spectacularly badly. I swore I would never again be sexually involved with someone I was working with, and so far I've been sticking to it.

"And reason number two," he continued to a still-flabbergasted Loki, "you just aren't my type. Sorry, Thor. I'm much more of the tall, dark, and handsome type when it comes to the male persuasion. You ever want to pass on my number to that crazy adopted brother of yours, be my guest. But buff, blond bear-ish types just don't do it for me."

For a moment, a panic-fueled burst of energy ran wild through Loki's body - had he been found out, somehow? Had Tony Stark managed to put together the puzzle of Loki's true identity, and was making some kind of mock of him? Why else would he say such a thing if not as a taunt?

Tony must have misinterpreted the change of expression he couldn't quite hide, because he leaned back and held up both hands, palm-out in a placating gesture. "Whoa there, Thor buddy, it was just a joke," he said. "It was just an example, since I didn't figure you'd know who Benedict Cumberbatch is, am I right?"

Loki relaxed. His secret was still safe. "Nay, I do not," he lied easily. "It is just... it is not an easy..." With the momentary panic of discovery receding, Loki found himself floundering. He was utterly at a loss as to how he would have responded to Tony's comment (compliment? flirtation? invitation?) even if he had been in his own body, let alone to try to figure out how _Thor _would have responded to it. It was never a situation that had come up before; there had never been anyone who would say, so casually and honesty, that they preferred Loki's charms to that of Asgard's crown prince.

"I get it, your baby brother's questionable virtue is an off-limits topic," Tony said. "No worries. But c'mon, Thor, don't give me the sad puppy eyes. I still love ya, big guy, in an entirely platonic and shield-brotherly way. I just don't want to do anything to mess that up, you know?"

"I... yes. And I you, Anthony Stark," Loki said, still reeling with confusion. Tony took the opportunity to sling an arm over his shoulders - not an easy feat, since he stood more than a foot taller than the mortal.

"I tell you what," Tony said. "You wanna celebrate? You wanna get laid? That can still be arranged. It's been a while since I hit the Strip. Let's take my private jet, rent a Maserati, and live it Stark-style tonight."

"Strip?" Loki repeated, dearly hoping that this wasn't a mortal invention that Thor was supposed to already know about.

"Vegas! Oh man, that's right! You haven't been to Vegas yet," Tony said, nearly stabbing him in the face with his pointing finger. "Thor, are you ever in for a treat. Let's show the big boy from the back country how us Midgardians _really_ party."

* * *

><p>~to be continued...<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

Thor came to the end of his prison once again, the edge of the tarnished mirror that he had arbitrarily named as demarcating the boundary of the round, featureless walls, and began again.

He was no longer pacing, driving himself from wall to wall in a furious explosion of nervous energy. Now he moved with more purpose, more patience, examining every single nook and cranny in his prison in search of some flaw, some weakness. He had been over every inch of the walls, ceiling and floor, every tiny and minute detail of the sparse furniture looking for some clue, some weakness, some chink in the armor that held him in.

It had become increasingly clear as hours turned into days that no search party was coming to rescue him. On some unspoken, unexamined level, Thor had expected that someone would by now. He'd been certain that Loki would reveal himself before too long, whether he was found out or if he discarded his own pretense in pursuit of whatever diabolical plan he was after this time. Once Loki was found out, the search would be on for the real Thor, and it wouldn't be too long before they traced him here.

But no one had come. Thor wasn't sure why they had not; perhaps Loki gone into hiding somewhere else, to further plot and prepare for his schemes, rather than revealing himself. Perhaps they were searching even now, but for some reason could not track him here. Perhaps - it frightened him to even entertain the thought, but he must - perhaps Loki had managed to overcome all of the other Avengers, leaving no one left to find him. Even that hypothesis supposed, however, that Loki could somehow manage to overcome or trick all of Asgard in addition to the mightiest warriors of Midgard, and that Thor just could not believe.

Almost more frightening than the thought of all his friends lying dead was the insidious, irrational fear that no one had found him simply because no one had bothered to look. It had no basis in reality, Thor was sure. As crown prince of Asgard and member of the Avengers, Thor was simply too important to be ignored. Yet as the cold grey days crept forward without measurable change or release, it rose in the foundations of his mind like icy floodwaters swirling around a dark cellar.

Thor was not accustomed to being alone. Oh, he had the same need for privacy as any man, but it was always with the understanding that others would come immediately to his side should he need them - servants, warriors, friends. Family. He'd gone on a few quests alone and reveled in the feeling of independence and self-sufficiency; yet it was a far cry from choosing to be by himself for a while, to being cut off from everyone he'd ever known and cared about. From knowing that he _couldn't_ reach out to others for help - or that even if he did, they might not bother to come. Or care. From knowing that he might die here, alone and far from the light and air, and that no one in the universe would even miss him, would even care.

He wondered if this was how Loki felt all the time.

Thor had been aware of his brother's solitude, often self-inflicted - he could be terribly unpleasant when he wanted to, and tended to drive off others with his fits of temper even before he'd gone mad. He'd always assumed that Loki simply liked to be alone and did not care for the company of others. But there was a difference between knowing it and _living_ it, being surrounded in it, immersed in it. It ate away at his courage and fortitude, poisoned his soul with doubts and increasingly bizarre turns of thoughts. It was not all right for Loki to be so alone. It made him worse.

To be sure, Thor had always tried more than others to be company for his brother, to ground and stabilize him. Yet in this solitude and silence he admitted to himself that he had not always tried all that hard. Nowadays, he really only paid attention to Loki when his brother was making some kind of trouble that could not be ignored, or when Thor needed him for something. The rest of the time, he simply had too much to do - battles to fight, duties to attend, mortals to protect - to spare a thought for how Loki was doing.

All his thoughts were for Loki now, anyway. He wondered what Loki was doing constantly, endlessly, compulsively, with a mixture of anxious fear and resentful fury. He found himself filling the long empty hours fantasizing about what he would do when he got free, what sort of a lesson he would teach his incorrigible brother.

Truly, he and Loki _had_ changed seats.

So he searched the cell, again and again, because it was better than lingering in his own thoughts. He must try, even if the results proved fruitless. It was the only thing left for him to do.

He wished that his friends were here, and not only to relieve the creeping, gnawing loneliness. Thor couldn't help but feel that almost anyone else would have been more suited to finding a way out of this trap than him. The Hulk could simply have smashed his way out; his elemental strength did not tired, no matter how many tons of rock stood in his path. Tony Stark probably would have engineered some crude but clever communications device out of a mirror and a chair leg. Loki... well, Loki would have magicked his way out of the trap days ago; Loki probably could have thought of a hundred ways to get out even without using his magic at all.

Loki had Thor's body, his strength; Thor was left with only his brother's lesser portion of that. He had Loki's magic, but he could not use it; he had not Loki's learning. Nor his wits. That was what was needed here, above all; this was not a trap that could be smashed free. It could only be escaped by cleverness; and Loki was so much more clever than Thor, how could Thor ever hope to find an weakness that Loki had not already thought ahead and blocked? Loki was so paranoid, so meticulously over-prepared - what angle could he possibly have overlooked?

And beneath that, the ever-gnawing fear: even if he escaped, would there be anything left of his friends to return to?

* * *

><p>Steve was halfway through Eric Schlosser's <em>Fast Food Nation<em> (a book Bruce had recommended to him, which was explaining _a lot_ of weird things about the twenty-first century) when Thor's voice boomed around him, jarring him out of his reverie. Ever since he'd gotten the super-serum, his startle reflex had turned up to 11. "Farewell, friend Steve!" Thor boomed. "We are off for a night of carousing and revelry!"

"Wait, what?" Steve stuck his head around the door. Tony smiled back at him and waggled one hand, dressed up in an eye-searingly glitzy suit and pair of sunglasses. "You're going where now?"

"Vegas, Steve baby, Vegas," Tony called back. "Did you ever make it out to Las Vegas before?"

"Uh, no," Steve said. It had been on the itinerary for a future USO tour - after the fateful England one - but things hadn't turned out that way, obviously.

"You should go sometime. It's a real party town. Only place in the US where prostitution is legal. Did they have that back in the 40s? Gambling too - well, not counting the reservation casinos. Anyway, it's a hell of a show."

"Care to accompany us?" Thor asked brightly, and Steve goggled.

"Uh - no," Steve stuttered. "That doesn't really, um, sound like my scene. I don't - I don't really do gambling."

"You sure? It's a lot of fun even if you don't gamble," Tony said. "Free shows, _not-_free shows, the Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group, the Lion King... plus girls, girls and booze, girls _with_ booze. Boys too, if you're into that sort of thing, there's the Chippendales and Thunder Down Under -"

"Thanks," Steve said firmly, cutting off this litany of entertainments, "but no thanks, I'll stay home this time. Maybe some other time."

"Suit yourself, Boy Scout," Tony said, and headed out towards the elevator with a wave. Thor gave him a bright and sunny smile before following - if Steve didn't know better, he would say _sauntering -_ behind.

"Sure the two of them should be let out without a chaperone?" Steve said ruefully to Natasha, who had come up beside him to watch them go. "I hate to think what the papers are going to say tomorrow."

"I'm not on Stark-sitting duty at the moment," Natasha said, but her hand caught at Steve's arm when he started to turn away. "Actually, I was hoping to catch you along. There's something we need to discuss."

Steve felt a prickle of wariness go down his spine at the tone of his voice. "Oh?" he said, looking back at her. "Is this 'we' as in Black Widow and Captain America, or 'we' as in The Avengers?"

"More of an Avengers matter, minus one," Natasha said. "Or more accurately, more like a matter for the earthbound parts of the Avengers. It's about Thor."

"What about Thor?" Steve said, somewhat confused. "I mean, maybe this isn't the best side of Earth for him to be seeing, but he's a big boy. Heck, he's over a thousand years old, I don't think anything Earth has to throw at him will phase him -"

"Not about that," Natasha shook her head. "Something's wrong. With Thor."

"Why do you say that?" Steve's brow wrinkled. "He did just fine on today's mission."

"Yes. He did." Natasha's flat tone didn't make it sound like a positive thing.

"So..." Steve raised his opened hands. "What's the problem? He's acting perfectly normal to me."

"That's exactly the thing," Natasha said. "He's _acting_ normal. Key word is _acting,_ Cap. Just a little too studied, a little too pat. Believe me, I'm the expert on putting on acts. And everything Thor's said and done in the past few days has been one."

"But why?" Steve asked in bewilderment.

Natasha shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "Yet. That's what we need to find out. Because if everything really _were_ fine, Cap - why would he need to _act_ like it is?"

There was a pause while they both considered this.

"Do you think we should contact Tony, warn him?" Steve said, concerned for his teammate's safety.

Natasha shrugged. "It's your call," she said. "But I don't think he's in any danger. He's been perfectly harmless for the past week and there's no reason to think that will change anytime soon. This will keep Thor out of the way while we inform the others and try to get a read on what's going on.

"Besides," she added, "aside from Bruce, Tony's probably the best able to defend himself from anything Thor dishes out."

Steve nodded slowly. "All right," he said. "Let's call the others."

* * *

><p>In his stone womb far beneath the earth, Thor circled the walls of his prison patiently - one more time. There was nothing else to do, and Thor was convinced that there must <em>be<em> a way out. Others, cleverer than he, would have found it long ago - but even he would find it in the end. He must. He could not sit idly by, waiting for a rescue that might be years coming - if at all. He could not wait and do nothing while above the earth, his friends might be in danger. He _must_ find the way out.

The door was sealed with magic far beyond his ken. Thor had dredged up the fractured magic lessons from his youth and tried to apply them, hoping that with Loki's power behind them they would be more efficacious. To no avail.

He tried the room's furniture again. Tarnished silver, battered wood, musty cloth. Not suitable materials for building with, even if he had known what to build.

There was the spring of water, trickling down over stone; but the entrance for water was far too narrow to admit him even if he could have hoped to swim upstream holding his breath for an unknown stretch of distance.

If he'd had his own strength, and Mjolnir, he could have pounded his way out with brute force. But he had not, and nothing that would replace it. In his frustration Thor collapsed on the thin mattress, staring fixedly at the bubbling spring simply as the only thing in this frozen bubble of stone that still _moved._

He continued to stare, imagining he could watch the spring of water trace back to its source. Imagining he could follow the thread all the way up to the open air, to where it would free itself from the rock and leap and bound over green hillsides and pouring waterfalls. It would meet with other springs and streams, joining its strength to theirs, and form a river that would carve its way down to the sea...

How _had_ the water come to be here, in all this impenetrable stone? Thor had only a vague understanding of geology, and the way that water acted on land over time. Yet he knew that water - so seemingly weak, so insubstantial - had the power to wear away stone. In time.

Thor sat bolt upright on the bed, holding his breath, afraid to move a single muscle lest he dislodge the thought hovering about the edges of his consciousness. How _did_ water break down the stone? For water was fluid and mutable, stone solid and unyielding. Yet water could split a boulder; he had seen it done, a block of stone split in twain while the unassuming spring trickled down the middle. In the summer the water flowed over the stone riverbed, seeping into every crack and insinuating into every weak crevice...

And then froze, when winter came; and in the force of its freezing, burst the stone apart like plywood.

Freezing water. Ice. Shattered stone. The beginnings of an epiphany, hovering just out of reach.

Could it be? Could Thor actually have stumbled upon a weakness - an oversight - in his prison? Could it actually be that Loki had overlooked something, had left Thor behind with the very key to his freedom, all unknown?

Thor knew the truth of Loki's heritage, and he knew equally well that Loki hated his ancestry with a violent - even homicidal - fervor. He kept to his Asgardian skin at all times except when dire extremity forced him out of it; never spoke of his true nature, never showed it, never, Thor was willing to bet, thought about it at all.

_Loki is a Frost Giant._

And that meant, right now, so was Thor.

* * *

><p>So far, Loki was not impressed by these "Vegas."<p>

Although it was autumn on Midgard, and pleasantly cool in New York City, this desolate desert hamlet was still boiling with heat. The humans coped by blasting frigid air throughout their buildings and cars, and Loki was not tolerating the rapid changes of temperature well. He never had been able to bear excessive heat and sunlight well (although that was in his _old_ body - perhaps it was just a psychosomatic reaction, now that he was in Thor's?)

Nevertheless, he made an effort to keep up a jovial façade as Iron Man led him from their private jet landing strip into the city. It was, Loki was forced to admit as the buildings grew up around him, a rather impressive city (for Midgard.) The soaring spires of Asgard it wasn't, but the glass and chrome towers rose up on all sides to a reasonable height, and as they drove down the wide boulevard they passed on the left and right an intriguing variety of shapes and materials. There was one glass-and-chrome material shaped in a pleasing curve; another like the brightly-patterned top of a tent, and yet another that was fashioned like an obsidian pyramid with a piercing white spotlight emerging from the top.

"Welcome to the heart of American decadence, Thor," Tony said proudly, when he noticed Loki looking. They were driving one of his vehicles; he had identified it as a 'Maserati,' although all Midgardian vehicles looked the same to Loki. "A monument to glamorous, frivolous, wasteful spending."

"It seems a merry place," Loki had to allow, and Tony laughed. "What shall we do here?"

"What does anyone do in Vegas? We gamble, of course," Tony said, and veered their car wildly over to the side to pull into a sparkling driveway. Servants in sharp dark suits hovered discreetly to whisk the car away as soon as they got out, and they were quickly escorted indoors.

"All of Vegas runs on the proceeds from the casinos, but mostly the Strip," Tony told him as the lobby opened up around them. It was a huge hall, every surface decked in gaudy, glittering silver and gold foil. The carpets were deeply plush and dyed bright scarlet, and rows and rows of gleaming, flashing machines marched away in every direction. "They pull in so much money from tourists and gamblers that they can afford to subsidize pretty much everything else they do here. In the richest place in America, the food and booze are damn near free, and you get shows on the street every hour."

"A fine arrangement," Loki said, secretly pleased.

Tony led the way to a grand hall, as fine as one that might be found on Asgard (though unpleasantly filled with a foul-smelling smoke.) Mortals in dark suits with shining white frocked coats appeared to usher them forward, ply them with drinks, with food, would sir like a cigar? Loki declined the cigar but took advantage of everything else offered to him, relaxing against the rich low divan with a feeling of great contentment towards the world.

He watched Tony for a time, moving from one gaming table to another, money flowing freely from his hands. News of their high-powered visitor had gotten around; mortal women, decked in skintight dresses and light-catching spangles, manifested out of nowhere to drape themselves against Tony Stark's side. It didn't take him long to pick up on the rules of the various games, and soon he was bored and restless to try his own hand at the tables.

Roulette did not interest him, being far too reliant on pure chance and with the odds skewed impoverishingly towards the house. There was not much fun to be had aside from using a bit of magic to subtly tilt the ball one way or the other, or to get it to do increasingly unlikely things that earned disappointed moans from the eager watchers.

Blackjack was somewhat more interesting, as it only required Loki to keep track of the fifty-two cards in their simplistic deck and calculate the odds of each one appearing next to his hand. Gradually, though, it became repetitive (and the dealers whose money he was steadily winning were getting increasingly agitated) and so Loki moved on. The next table over - closest to where Tony was perched at the head of one of the long roulette pets - was a four-man game of poker.

Now, _this_ was a game worth playing - with enough randomness to keep the game interesting, and yet the true game lay in the face, the expression, in what you could or could not read from your opponents. Deception and counter-deception, masks within masks - a true liar's game.

"My friends!" Loki positioned himself by the empty chair and spoke in Thor's energetic, booming voice. "Might you have space for one more by your fire?"

"Sure, big boy." One of the poker players gestured with a hand that held a cigar. "A bigger pot, a better game. Make yourself at home."

Loki seated himself and looked around the table at his new companions, letting Thor's natural earnestness shine through. The dealer quickly and smoothly handed five cards over in a neat stack and Loki looked down at his hand, prepared to use his brother's honest and open face for all it was worth.

* * *

><p>Natasha led Steve to a corner cafe, one of the half-dozen he'd seen on every city block. He assumed this was the start of some elaborate stealth scheme that required them to blend into the crowd, before meeting with her shady contacts or whatever she needed to do. Or maybe she just needed an unsecured wireless network, judging by how hard she was glaring at her phone and punching in numbers.<p>

"So," Steve began as they settled into a half-obscured corner with a good view of the passing street outside. "Are we going to track down Thor's actions in the past few months? Try to figure out where he's been and what he's been doing that could lead to this change of behavior? Get people to nose around and see if there's any news from Asgard? Call up Dr. Strange and ask him to check for any kind of magic abnormalities?"

"Oh, sure," Natasha said with a shrug, "all of those things. But right now SHIELD is doing its Tuesday maintenance, so we won't be able to get anyone on the line. And Strange is out of town on one of his 'I must save the universe' jaunts right now."

Steve blinked, confusion wrinkling his brow. "Wait, if we can't do anything till they get back, then what did you drag me in here for?" he demanded.

"Well, you've never had one of Starbucks' seasonal pumpkin spice lattes, have you?" Natasha replied.

* * *

><p>Tony was just getting into the zone at the roulette table - living the high life of wine, women and song (well, brandy rather than wine, and discreetly piped-in muzak rather than song, but one out of three wasn't bad) - when it occurred to him to look around to check on his companion's progress. Tony knew he made a crap escort in a lot of ways; once he'd brought someone to an event he was terribly bad about staying with them, making sure they knew where to go and were having a good time. He'd always relied on others to do that sort of people-management for him - hell, he was usually the one <em>being<em> managed.

But he finally managed to surface long enough to check on Thor's progress, and what he saw made him surge up from his well-couched seat of warm leather and warmer female bodies in alarm. Thor - his bright blond hair and cape were unmistakable - was surrounded by a group of security guards, with one man in the expensive tailored Armani suit of a casino wrangler standing in front of him. Thor was laughing at whatever the man had said, but the rest of the men didn't look terribly amused.

"'Scuse me," Tony muttered, regretfully extricating himself from his seat, and hurried over to the impending conflict. "Uh, what's going on here? Did Big Blondie here do something, smash a jar of chips or what?"

"Mr. Stark." The manager's glower transferred to him with an air of relief. "As pleased as we are to have you patronize our establishment at any time… your friend here has been playing poker."

"Um, that's good?" Tony tried. "I don't see any blood, looks like everybody's teeth are intact, what's the problem?"

"Playing poker very well," the manager continued, a pained note in his voice. "Very, _very_ well. Almost… extraordinarily well. The other players are feeling rather… left out. And we do make a point of making sure that _all_ of our patrons, even the less famous ones, enjoy their time here."

Ah. Tony sighed. Patrons who played _very _well were not, on their own merits, welcome in a casino. Frankly, it didn't really matter whether they caught a patron actually _cheating_ or not; merely being too consistent at making the cash flow the other way was enough to invite the disgruntlement of the towers. And if said patron refused to cooperate when asked politely, they tended to ask less politely next.

For a moment Tony debated standing his ground, flashing Avengers cred or at least billionaire-playboy-and-_actual_-alien-diplomat celebrity cred, but he decided it wasn't worth it. They had come out here to have fun, not get into fights with civilian suits. And besides, there was a whole nother street full of casinos out there. "Well, I was just about done here, anyway," he said, flashing them a bright smile. "Ring up both our drinks and put it on our account, will you?"

"Very good, sir," the manager murmured, relief clear in his eyes as Tony headed for their _extraordinarily lucky_ norse God guest.

"Tony!" Thor cried out as he came within sight, raising one hand exuberantly. "My friend, it is good to see you! I have just been learning the gaming customs of Midgard with my new friends!"

He seemed utterly oblivious to the dark glares the his "new friends" at the poker tables aimed at him. Before anyone decided to throw a punch, break their hand on Thor's face, and sue, Tony took his teammate carefully by one huge bicep and steered him towards the stairwell.

"That's great, big guy, but it's time to move on," he said. "The night's still young and there's a whole lotta partying left to do."

As they descended the wide staircase, Tony couldn't resist the temptation to ask. "So, uh... _were_ you cheating, back there?"

"Tony!" Thor flashed him a look of such wounded shock, Tony would have immediately labeled it a put-on if it had been anyone but Thor. "Do you truly believe that I would dishonor the name of my father, my House, of Asgard in such a base and uncouth manner?"

"No, no, of course not. Forget it," Tony said hastily, flapping a hand as though to perish the thought. "I was just wondering, since I know you'd never played poker before, how extraordinary your luck was."

Thor hummed, apparently pleased by the praise. "Aye, well, it is a simple matter of interpreting the expressions of your gaming companions, for the most part," he said. "And what kind of diplomat, what kind of leader of men would I be if I had not these simplest of skills?"

"Oh," Tony said, and decided to leave it at that. "Sure, makes sense to me."

They passed through the lower levels of the tower on their way out the front entrance to the Strip, bypassing the more discreet back entrance they'd come through. Thor looked around with some interest at the rows and rows of brightly-lit, chrome-bedecked slot machines, each one promising a new appealing variation on the theme of "insert money here, never see it again, repeat."

"What games are these?" Thor wanted to know, surveying the crowds of ever-hopeful gamblers. "Compared to the others, they do seem rather... gaudy."

"Oh, sure. Well, they gotta cater to tourists of all classes," Tony waved that away. "Middle-class and working-class joes from all over the American Southwest come here to burn their wages, and the casino's gotta keep something around that they can play. Anyway, I figured if you were tired of gambling for a while, we could head down to the Monte Carlo to take in a show, then see where the night takes us -"

"We are celebrating our victory against the Man of Artifice, are we not?" Thor said enthusiastically, unshipping Mjolnir from his hip. "Aye, and let all the common man celebrate along with us tonight!"

"Uh -" was as far as Tony got before Thor swung the hammer up towards the red-painted ceiling. A flash of bright light jumped from the head of his hammer towards the ceiling, and grounded itself in the ostentatious metal trim. The lights surged to blinding colors - a few popped and snapped, filling the air with the smell of burning wire - and then a cacophony of bells and music filled the hall of the casino as every slot machine on the floor began to pay out at once.

Tony looked from Thor's innocent, enthusiastic expression, to the security men and the panting clerks who had come up to join them, to the joyful near-riot that was breaking out on the slots floor. A few casino employees were trying to block the happy patrons from cashing in their winnings, claiming a system malfunction, but the tide was rising quickly against them.

He looked back to the manager, who was approaching the pair of them with blood in his eye. "You know what?" he said. "This will probably be a lot simpler if I just buy the whole tower right now."

* * *

><p>As Thor concentrated intently, a small rivulet of ice slowly snaked its way down his forehead and trickled down his neck. He ignored it as he concentrated on his hand, forcing the water trickling into the cracks in the rock to freeze solid. A muffled report in the stone proclaimed his success, and the small crack gaped wider - by a bare few inches.<p>

Thor went back to the stream again. He had no idea how many hours had passed since his moment of revelation. It had taken a seemingly endless time before he was able to convince his borrowed flesh to take on Jotun form, and for a time he had despaired that his plan would fail before it had even begun.

But then he felt a chill run deep through his bones, and saw the blue creep up his skin through his arm and chest to spread through the rest of him. He had steadfastly ignored looking in the mirror after that, although he didn't need to; he knew what he looked like.

Since then it had been slow, tedious repetition: fetch water from the spring, force it into a small crack in the stone wall, and pour freezing power into it until the ice broke through the stone. He had hollowed a small, shallow tunnel of a few feet into the wall already. At this rate, it might be years before he saw daylight again.

But that did not matter. He would continue, because no matter how long or how laborious the process, he could not give up. Not until he was free again, and his friends were safe.

* * *

><p>Barring the mishap of the unexpected business acquisition, the rest of the evening actually got pretty on track from there, more like Tony was envisioning. He cruised slowly up and down the Strip with his top down, the stiff breeze and the setting sun helping to stave off the worst of the desert heat. The Strip livened up around them as the sun went down, brilliant incandescent lights springing up to outline every building, every lamppost, every tree in illumination bright as day but much tackier.<p>

Thor filled out the passenger seat, one boot on the dashboard, one hand hanging over the side as the other swigged alcohol from a meter-long glass. Thor had enthused over the size of the drinks (as well as the size of the desserts they'd gotten on their way out,) admitting that he normally found Midgardian portion sizes too "dainty."

Not something you heard every day in America, Tony reflected.

There was no point to visiting Vegas and not taking in a show, so Tony had vaguely planned to head down to the Monte Carlo to take in a Blue Man Group showing. But Thor had gotten all weird and hostile at the very mention of the name. That had baffled Tony at first, until he vaguely remembered Thor talking about 'Frost Giants' sometime before, and how they were hereditary enemies of the Aesir.

He hadn't figured Thor would be one to get tetchy over a superficial resemblance, especially since Thor had taken pains to stress how the conflict was not only one-sided and that there were plenty of good and honorable Frost Giants as well but eh, whatever. Prejudices that were beaten into you from childhood weren't always easily overcome, no matter how hard the rational and well-meaning part of your brain wanted to.

So the Blue Man Group was out. That was fine; they'd ended up in a Cirque du Soleil performance of _Zumanity_ instead, which turned out to be even better as he and Thor spent most of the performance loudly critiquing the technique of the sex acts being depicted. They got some dirty glares from the ushers and other people in the VIP stands, but Thor seemed completely oblivious and Tony Stark was rich as fuck, so he didn't care.

But what definitely caught Tony off guard was just how easily Thor kept up with, and even surpassed him in their lecherous commentary on the show. He didn't know why it surprised him so much - he knew Thor was technically speaking old as the hills, and came from a culture as famous for its raunchy partying skills as for its imperial conquests. It was just a side of Thor he'd never seen, and maybe because he'd never looked - maybe knowing Captain America had tricked his brain into associating big-and-blondness with stick-up-assedness.

Still, whatever had stopped him from realizing it before, he was glad to realize it now; he couldn't recall the last time he'd had so much fun in the company of one of his teammates. Thor was funny, observant and unexpectedly eloquent in turning both to use, and Tony nearly laughed himself sick before the show was over.

Okay, the margaritas had probably helped with that too. But what else was alcohol for?

As they passed through the lobby on their way out of the show, Tony inquired after Thor's preferences in female company. Prostitution, per se, was still technically illegal in the city of Las Vegas (though not the rest of Nevada,) but that technicality did not deter all manner of gentleman's clubs from springing up around the city's perimeter. Tony wasn't in a hurry to finish the night - not even in the arms of charming female company - but he felt obliged, since one-third of the reason they were here in the first place was to get Thor laid, in the wake of Tony turning him down.

(He still felt kind of bad about that, and was almost having second thoughts - big blond bears weren't _usually_ his type, but there were individual exceptions to everything - if not for the strict no-dating-coworkers clause he'd imposed on himself in the wake of the Pepper catastrophe.)

He needn't have worried, because as it turned out Thor gave some noncommittal response to his question and then immediately hared off in pursuit of the tame lions kept in the MGM Grand Hotel as mascots.

"What fine beasts!" he enthused, running one hand through their manes. The custodians stationed around the lion enclosure made protesting noises, but Thor ignored them; besides which, any Earth animal that tried to take a chunk out of Thor's arm was likely to get broken teeth for their trouble. At any rate, the lions were obviously used to being around people, and bore Thor's attentions with a bored indifference. "What fine mounts they would make!"

"Mounts? What? Thor, no, you can't ride these guys," Tony protested, catching up to him. "They're lions. Who the hell rides lions?"

"The lady Freyja of Vanaheim," Thor answered promptly and yeah, Tony should have seen that coming. "She has a chariot which is drawn by two great cats. There are none of that type on Midgard, but these are fine seconds, indeed!"

For a moment Tony was at a loss to argue with that. Finally he managed "Yeah, well, you don't have a chariot," he said. "And you can't exactly put a saddle on a lion, Thor, they're not horses."

"No, indeed. Horses are far stronger in endurance, and can be much more mercurial of temper," Thor said, an odd glint in his eye. He gave the lion another pat on its huge, muscled neck. "I have mastered a horse. I am sure these would be no challenge."

"Thor, _no,"_ Tony said as firmly as possible. As he led the unwilling God of Thunder away from the exhibition, he wondered how in hell he'd ended up as the responsible one.

He was going to need more alcohol to deal with this. A lot more. On their way to the exit, he flagged down one of the many waiters that roamed the floor, and ordered enough alcohol to make two men blind. Or, knowing his past experience with Thor, one Asgardian slightly tipsy.

* * *

><p>Fortune smiled on Thor in one way at least. For unknown, uncounted hours he had toiled painstakingly through the rock wall of his prison, angling upwards as he went. But his tunnel had not extended more than a dozen paces of rough-hewn stone before he gave way abruptly to some softer rock, which shattered under even Loki's strength, and then another dozen yards on into empty air.<p>

It was not yet the surface - Thor only wished it could have been that simple. But he had broken into another underground cave system, perhaps part of the very same one that Loki made his lair in. This part of the subterranean caverns was completely natural, uncarved and unfurnished, with no light and only a little water trickling in from some underground stream. He was lost, blind, unarmed, weak and exhausted - but he was free.

Thor wandered long in the darkness, trying his best to keep his sense of direction as he searched for a way out. Unfortunately, just because there were caves did not necessarily mean that there was a way out; these caves could have been made by underground rivers long ago, their entrances collapsed or never carved. Still, progress was progress, and Thor kept to every turn in the caverns that took him higher. More than once, his way forward was blocked by some too-small passageway or partial wall, and he had to use a combination of ice and sheer brute strength to break a way through.

After untold time lost in that labyrinth, Thor caught a whiff of something else - dust and leaves, dry and sun-warmed, and a hint of decaying leaves. He hurried in that direction and soon his senses were rewarded with a feast: the warming of the air in the cavern around him, the sound of rustling wind over rock and grass, and even sunlight, oh Norns, sunlight at last!

He burst eagerly from the cave into full noon, and the difference hit him like a blow from Mjolnir. For long minutes he was just as blind in the sunlight as he had been in the eternal night below, until his furiously watering eyes began to adjust. The heat of the sun beat down on him mercilessly, and Thor could only wonder dazedly if this too were only a matter of being adjusted to dark coolness, or whether the Frost Giant skin he wore was particularly susceptible to the heat and light of the sun.

If that were the case, then Thor had a new problem to worry about. He could see no landmarks or signs of habitation in any direction. Having found his way to freedom against the most unlikely of odds, Thor had no desire to die of exposure in the hinterlands.

After some hesitation, Thor picked the direction that he thought was most closely aligned with the way he'd come through the caverns. He couldn't remember now how close or far to the road had been the cave where Loki had sprung his trap, but at least there he could get his bearings. And once he was on the right side of the warding spell, Loki's lair might contain things of use - shade and rest, water and food, perhaps weapons.

His destination determined, Thor stepped off across the sunny plain, only to find that he did not have to travel far at all to find weapons. There were dozens of them right now, the flimsy metal projectiles that the Midgardians favored. Pointed at his chest.

* * *

><p>~tbc...<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

"Shouldn't we get to work rescuing Thor?" Steve asked, amidst the litter of paper napkins and pastry crumbs.

"Well, the coffee _is_ getting rather cold," Natasha replied.

* * *

><p>As they exited the MGM Grand, fresh drinks in hand, Loki glanced up at the skyline and nearly jumped out of his skin. For a moment he thought he had been transported a thousand miles across this wretched realm - and back in time, as well. "Bor's blood," he exclaimed to cover his moment of dismay "that is a familiar sight, is it not? What is it doing here, so far from the city of New York?"<p>

"Eh?" Tony glanced up, and caught the familiar silhouettes of downtown Manhattan. "Oh, yeah, that's the 'New York' themed hotel," he said. "It's just false fronts, but it's a pretty good illusion, isn't it?"

"Hm," Loki said, carefully hiding his annoyance at the insulting misappropriation of the word 'illusion.' True illusion was a mysterious and venerated branch of magic, not cheap mummer's tricks performed with paint and clapboard.

Still - with the use of forced perspective, Loki had to admit, the fake skyline of New York did look very convincing. As he stared up at it, a wicked thought began to take shape in his mind. It was there, amongst those towers, that Loki had met his defeat at the hands of Thor and his friends. How different would it be this time, now that Thor's hands _were_ his?

Not that he planned to bring another alien army to the real New York, of course. Of course not. Nothing so grand. It would be just a bit of a lightshow, a demonstration of the _real_ meaning of illusion.

And he'd been so very, _very_ good up till now. Didn't he deserve a bit of fun?

* * *

><p>Thor's first, unworthy thought when he saw the group of mortals, headed by Coulson, was <em>Oh, not right <strong>now.<strong>_ It had been a long and difficult enough day dealing with Loki's trials, without having to placate a suspicious and hostile group of mortals on top of it.

For a brief moment, he was tempted to just scatter the humans and flee, avoid the complications of what was going to be a very tricky, very fraught conversation. After all, if Loki had no compunctions about tarnishing Thor's reputation, why should Thor be particularly concerned about whether or not Loki was in good odor on Earth?

But he did not; partly because he was not sure he would be able to escape with no harm to the humans, but more to the point, he admitted, because he was not sure he would be able to escape at all. Loki was sly and tricky, but Thor was not in command of all his magics, or even his quick reflexes. He was weakened from the time spent in the prison and wandering in the sun. The only way out was going to be forward.

So Thor held up his hands, palms out to show that he was not armed, and plastered a beaming smile on his face as the humans approached. "My friends!" he exclaimed, hoping to set the tone. "I am so glad to see you!"

"You've been a lot of things to the people of Earth, Loki," Coulson said as he stepped forward, holding - yes, it _was_ the gun made from the spare parts of the destroyer. Thor winced. He had no particular desire to see it used against Loki, _or_ himself. "But 'friend' really isn't one of them."

"No, no, that is not what I meant," Thor protested, waving his hands. "Things are not as they appear. Do not let your eyes deceive you -"

"It's not really our _eyes_ that we're worried about deceiving us," quipped Coulson's female companion, a dark-haired woman whom Thor did not know.

Thor sighed. "Please, hear me out," he said. "I know what it looks like to you, but I swear upon Mjolnir that I am _not_ Loki. I am Thor, son of Odin."

And then he was off, explaining the whole fiasco from the beginning; the summons in the night, the fake sword of Freyr, the trap, the spell. Waking up in the wrong body, Loki's diatribe of diabolical plans. The uncounted time spent trapped in the prison, and finally his escape. The expressions of the humans remained deeply skeptical throughout, but at least they lowered their weapons.

There was a thoughtful silence after he finished his tale, which Coulson eventually broke. "Well, you see how this puts us in a bit of a dilemma," he said. "On one hand, since you're Loki, we can't trust a word that comes out of your mouth. On the other hand, this whole yarn _does_ sound _exactly like something Loki would do."_

Thor could sympathize. "But surely this does not come as a surprise to you?" he said anxiously. "I would think you would be glad to have an explanation for my - that is, for the strange behavior of the one currently calling himself Thor? Some cause to explain my - I mean his - radical change of behavior?"

"Can't say that we do," said the dark-haired woman, whom Thor had tentatively identified as Fury's lieutenant, Maria Hill.

"Are you saying that there have been no... assassinations?" Thor said hesitantly.

"Not in the past couple of days, no," Coulson replied.

"No hurricanes?" Thor said in disbelief.

"Nope."

"No small countries conquered? No magical artifacts stolen? No national monuments destroyed?" Thor asked, thinking back to Loki's litany of threats in the cave.

"Not that I've heard about, no."

"This is the first we've heard that something might be odd about Thor at all," Maria Hill added. "He and the other Avengers fought off an attack on New York from the Artificer yesterday, and they were all fine then, and seemed to be acting no different than usual."

That offhand comment left Thor flabbergasted. How could this be? Loki had _told_ Thor of his plans, the wicked acts he had intended to carry out in Thor's name. All of Thor's thoughts and energies had been bent on breaking out of prison in time to stop him before the damage became too great.

Yet now they were saying - that there had been no damage _at all?_ No attacks? No betrayals?

That made no sense. Loki must be acting with great stealth, Thor was forced to conclude. He must have put aside plans to despoil Thor's reputation, at least in the short run, in order to use Thor's identity to commit some great theft or sabotage. Having come to this conclusion, Thor felt an immense relief; at least he might be in time to foil Loki's nefarious schemes, after all.

But it did put him in a bit of a bind; having done nothing too obviously out of character, Loki left no opening for him to regain his identity. "Is there no proof that you would accept, that my story is true?" Thor tried. "Perhaps some question you could ask that only the true Thor could answer?"

Coulson and Hill exchanged glances, then Coulson shrugged. "That's not a bad idea, in theory," he said. "Unfortunately, we don't really know Thor well enough to have any questions to ask that Loki couldn't also reasonably know the answers to. They _were_ brothers for over a thousand years, after all; we have to conclude that the real Loki knows the real Thor pretty well."

That sent a hurtful pang through Thor, though he knew that the mortal did not mean it to cause offense. He brooded for a moment, searching for some alternative route.

Then it came to him.

"I believe there is something that I can do to prove my identity to your satisfaction," he announced. "Something that only the true Thor, son of Odin, would be able to do. But you must take me there."

Again that exchange-of-glances, as though a silent conversation were being held in the air between them. Then Hill looked back to him and nodded. "All right," she said. "We'll play you out some rope. Just in case you start getting any funny ideas, though, we've got the Destructo-beam trained on your shoulder blades the whole time."

Thor was overcome with relief, despite the threat, that they were at least giving him a chance to prove himself. "That will not be necessary," he assured her earnestly. "I will make no sudden moves. But come, let us make haste. We must find Loki and stop him, before his nefarious plans come to fruition!"

* * *

><p>He should have brought Thor to Vegas long ago, Tony thought. For the most part, the charms of the Strip had worn thin on Tony long ago; there was only so much sex, gambling and drugs you could really do before the novelty wore off. And the sheer sensory overload of the Strip - the glitz, the dazzle, the lights, the noise, the crowd - could burn you out, if you weren't careful.<p>

But having Thor along made it all seem new again. If only, Tony admitted, because he kept seemed to finding new and inventive forms of trouble to get into.

They'd strolled up the Strip , ice-cold margaritas in hand to ward off the residual heat of the day, as Thor admired the lights and pageantry on display. Here on the most expensive three miles of storefront in the country, every casino tower had to come up with its own innovative gimmick to draw patrons in. The false skyline of the New York, the light fountains of the Bellagio, the volcano pyrotechnics in front of the Mirage, and of course, the pirate battle of Treasure Island.

Their timing was good - they'd ended up in front of Treasure Island just as the show was starting. Water pouring from every beam and crevice, the wooden replica of a sailing frigate rose from the deep blue pool of water until it bobbed realistically on the surface. The decks and masts were swarmed by a troop of actors in old-timey costumes, singing as they pretended to go about the business of preparing the ship for departure - as though there were anywhere it could sail off to in the middle of the desert.

Still, Thor was getting into it, seeming enthralled by the costumes and props, so Tony lingered a while, still sipping his margarita.

"Stop right there!" a microphone-augmented shout echoed around the courtyard, and the crowd turned to see a second ship rounding the corner of the moat (on an underwater track, of course.) Unlike the first ship, whose crew had been mostly male, this ship was exclusively crewed by scantily-clothed women who posed and preened from their perches on the decks. "Stand and deliver, boys! You've been waylaid by the pirate crew of the Harpy!"

"Piracy!" Thor exclaimed, a shocked expression on his face. "Even here, within the boundaries of America itself? This cannot stand!"

Loosening Mjolnir in his belt, Thor climbed up onto the railing before Tony could stop him. "Wait - Thor - wait," Tony called, grabbing at a trailing sleeve in vain. "It's just a show. It's not a real ship, and they aren't real pirates. You know that, right? Thor!"

But Thor either didn't hear, or he ignored him as he leapt from the top of the railing to land on the prow of the ship, striking a heroic pose as he did. "Halt, villains!" he thundered; despite having no microphone, his voice still easily overwhelmed that of the actors. "There will be no piracy this day. I am Thor, god of Thunder, and this realm is under my protection!"

_Oh, God._ Tony dragged a hand down over his face. The actors glanced nervously at each other, no doubt wondering where Security was during all this. But Thor was only getting started, launching into a stern declamation of the evils of banditry and the sanctity of the high seas. Tony started forward, ready to try to drag Thor back if necessary, when a sudden thought struck him.

_What the hell am I doing?_ Tony wondered. Since when had he been the wet blanket, the party-killer? It would be pretty damn hypocritical for he, Tony Stark, to try to chide any of his teammates for acting out and public.

Besides, Thor was a big boy. Big alien prince, that was. He could take care of himself, he didn't need Tony Stark to chaperone him again. It was time for Tony to stop worrying about babysitting the God of Thunder, and get back to his own priorities. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.

* * *

><p>As soon as they hit the street, Natasha's phone twinkled, and she flipped it open and started texting with uncanny speed. After a moment she flipped her phone shut and slipped it into her breast pocket, grabbing sleeve to drag him along. "Let's go," she said.<p>

Steve's heart beat faster. "Did you get a lead?" he asked excitedly. "Did someone from SHIELD get back to you?"

"That too," Natasha said, "but more importantly, the El Olomega gourmet food truck just updated their twitter, and they're in the Red Hook Ballfield _right now._ We've got to get a move on, or they'll sell out before we get there!"

* * *

><p>"Oh my <em>god,"<em> a female voice said, properly awestruck. "It's really _him._ Like, the Son of Odin? Like, the God of Thunder? That really _cut_ alien dude? Y'know, _the Mighty Thor?"_

Loki turned around, grinning at this description of his (current) self. "Aye, that I am."

A crowd had formed in the street from Loki's impromptu performance in the ship battle. He had greatly enjoyed himself, although he was a little disappointed that Tony had apparently given up trying to talk him down after only a few minutes. (Not that Loki would have allowed himself to be dissuaded, but still, the disapproval was half the fun.)

Despite the amount of alcohol he'd consumed, Loki was not nearly as drunk as he pretended to be. Alcohol was such a _useful_ excuse for ignoring social conventions, and Loki had seen more than enough of Thor in his cups to be able to mimic his boisterous, impulsive, judgment-impaired behavior to the hilt.

"I saw you on the news yesterday!" another female admirer enthused. "You were _soooo cool,_ destroying all those robots, just like that!"

"Are you really an alien?" a third wanted to know, a young man with an _Avengers _t-shirt and huge eyes. "Because that's just _awesome!"_

Loki soaked up the praise and attention like a sponge, glowing with the regard of his new followers. He glanced around, wanting to check out Tony Stark's reaction to his new admirers. Perhaps a little bit of jealousy would do the trick, convince Tony to rethink his rebuff from earlier.

To his great annoyance, Tony was back over by the car, surrounded by a crowd of his own sycophants. Most of them were young, female and scantily dressed (he refused to think that the heat might have anything to do with this fact; no, _clearly_ they were just women of loose morals.) Tony had his hip slung comfortably over the hood of the Maserati and was flirting outrageously.

"Tony Stark!" Loki called out, and just barely managed to make it not come out an accusing bellow. "We are well-finished here, are we not? Where should we go next?"

Tony flapped a dismissive hand at him. "Wherever you like, big boy; it's a big town, and a long night ahead of us," he called back. "Go ahead and do your thing; I'll catch up later."

Loki suppressed a scowl, and eyed Tony disfavorably. Discreetly, so as to not attract attention, he weaved a small curse of misfortune and laid it on his till-now drinking companion. Tony Stark would learn better than to spurn Loki's company, oh yes he would.

Whatever he'd been about to do next, it was driven out of his mind as a sudden growling rumble sounded from nearby. Loki turned to look as a small landscaped hill in front of a nearby tower suddenly began to glow an ominous red, with the rumblings and belchings of stone behind it.

The top of the hill exploded, sending a belch of red fire into the air that was mirrored in the flat pond of water below it. It was accompanied by another set of smaller flames, jetting up from the corners of the pond.

"By Odin's Beard!" Loki swore admiringly, his attention captured by the pretty, pretty fires. "At last a proper tribute to myself, the God of Thunder!"

* * *

><p>During the midnight confrontation between Thor and Loki, Thor had flung Mjolnir hard enough to break the stone wall of the cave and punch through to the open air on the other side. He hadn't gotten a chance to retrieve her; Loki's spell had ambushed her before he could call her return.<p>

It took some searching for him to find the place on the unremarkable hillside outside the cave where Mjolnir had broken through, and some time longer to find where she'd finally come to rest, in a ditch well beyond.

The human agents shadowed him closely throughout the search, vigilant and interested. They seemed to be willing to at least give him a chance to prove himself, although the way their sharp eyes tracked every move waiting for the tiniest slip made him twitchy and nervous. The way all of them watched him, just waiting for him to fail so they could turn on him, made him want to unleash his frustration in a burst of anger and violence, just to show them.

Or was that Loki's habits talking again?

But they found Mjolnir at last, lying half-hidden by a drift of dead leaves and dry weeds. He could feel the humming of her magic as he approached, but she made no move to return to his hand, and he hesitated even as he stepped forward and reached a hand towards her.

What if this didn't work? If the spell failed to return Mjolnir to Loki's hands, what made him think that Loki's hands would lift her? _But they are different spells,_ he insisted against the doubts plaguing his mind. Upon his return home he'd had a chance at last to read the runes Odin had placed on Mjolnir's head: _whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, will possess the power of Thor._ He didn't need to _be_ Thor, right now, he just needed to be as _worthy_ as Thor, and Mjolnir would answer to him.

But was he worthy? He wasn't sure that he was. Or was that exactly what it meant to be worthy, that you didn't feel worthy of it? And if that was the case, did the fact that he didn't feel worthy and that meant that he was mean that he _did_ feel worthy and therefore wasn't? And didn't that mean -

Coulson, standing behind him, cleared his throat. "You brought us out here to show us something?" he prompted. "I don't think it was for a round of omphaloskepsis."

Thor jolted out of his pondering. "Aye, it was not," he said. Taking a deep breath, and trying not to dwell too much on what would happen if he failed to convince the humans of his identity (and did _that_ thought make him unworthy?) he closed his hand around Mjolnir's haft.

For a moment nothing happened, and Thor felt a rush of cold through his veins. Then he moved and Mjolnir moved with him, rising easily from the pile of foliage and resting lightly in his hands. Thor grinned, splitting his face from ear to ear, and swung the hammer up towards the sky, where it met with a flash of lightning out of the sky. "See me, Son of Coul, Men of Shield," he cried in a strong voice. "I am the Son of Odin. I am the God of Thunder. I am the Mighty Thor!"

When the lightning faded, Thor turned around with a smile on his face to see two of his teammates - Captain America and the Black Widow - just now joining the rest of the crowd. Steve Rogers was staring at him with an astonished expression on his face, mouth hanging open, as Phil Coulson quickly and urgently brought him up to speed.

Natasha looked considerably more sanguine about the situation. "Well," she said, "this explains a _lot."_

* * *

><p>It was turning out to be a pretty good night for Tony Stark, inauspicious public drunk and disorderlies aside. He'd managed to meet up with a number of young ladies from his fan club that he didn't even know he had, and he was just about drunk enough to let the makeup fool him into believing they really were the age they said they were. Not that Tony was particularly fussy about that; as long as everybody involved was over eighteen, he didn't care too terribly much about how many eighteenth birthdays they'd counted past that.<p>

(Although even he had to draw the line somewhere, such as with the geriatric old grandmother who'd approached his car and told him, in a cracking cackle, that she was his biggest fan. She'd bought _all_ of the Iron Man merchandise, including the limited-release Iron Man matched underwear and bra set, which she'd promptly demonstrated to him by pulling open her coat in the middle of the street to show him. _That_ had been awkward.)

Now he was packed back into his Maserati, less one Thor, but with half a dozen lovely young ladies taking his place, and all in all Tony thought he'd made the better of the trade. The radio blared out AC/DC's "Thunderstruck," the dancer in the Iron Man blouse pressed against his shoulder as she sang along, and Tony really was a little too drunk to be behind the wheel like this, but this was Vegas so it wasn't like he could really get up enough speed to do any damage anyway.

A stir in the crowd caught his eye, people turning and pointing, and Tony craned his head around to look. There was movement near the top of the New York, a familiar silhouette outlined by the spotlights. After a moment Tony recognized the shaggy head and shoulders of Thor, but it took him a moment longer to resolve his lower half into -

_Holy shit._ How the hell had Thor gotten hold of one of the MGM lions, _let alone_ gotten it to the top of the New York? Flying hammer or no flying hammer, that just didn't make any damn sense.

Thor did make a very impressive silhouette, sitting astride the back of a lion as he raised his hammer to the sky. "Citizens of Midgard!" he boomed out. "I thank you for your fine entertainments this eve. Now, the time has come for your to see _true_ spectacle. Do you wish to see a show? Do you wish to see flashing lights and explosions? Very well -"

He raised his hammer high, and bright green lightning leapt from the head of the hammer to the cloudless sky. A groan of thunder answered him, and then the sky lit up as dozens of bright streaks of lightning rained down in answer. The sky glowed with eerie light, and mad images seemed to swoop and shimmer in the lightning-pierced darkness. One bolt of lightning caught on the replica of the Empire State Building, setting it ablaze. The crowd cheered wildly.

"What's he doing? He's gonna raze New York!" Tony groaned. Beside him, the AC/DC singing young lady shrieked in his ear.

_"Look out!"_

There was a solid _thump_ as his car met a curb, and bounced and arced over it. Tony grabbed at the wheel, but he'd lost any hope of control over its momentum, and the car bucked and swerved as he fought to brake.

They landed with a deafening splash in the lighted fountains in front of the Bellagio, spouts of water bubbling like champagne in the golden lights. The engine flooded, groaned, and stalled.

Moans of feminine disappointment rose up from his passengers, and Tony Stark sighed as he raised his hands to scrub his face. "Sorry about that, ladies," he said. "Looks like the Tony Stark tour is at a -"

He cut off as he caught sight of a familiar-looking shape cruising slowly through the water towards their stalled car. "_Whoa_, hey, a shark."

Natasha and Steve had the whole team, plus Coulson and his men, arrayed in the main room of Avengers Mansion when Tony's car finally pulled back in the driveway. There were a few barely-audible words between the driver and passengers, then the slam of a door. A few moments later Tony himself staggered through the door, then stopped in his tracks and stared at the crowd in dismay.

Not that they didn't do a little staring back. Tony's glitzy suit was a wreck, almost as much as the man it contained; his sunglasses had a crack in them and did not do much to cover up a swelling black eye. His left hand was heavily bandaged, and he was walking with a limp.

"Okay," Tony said. His voice was rusty, either from fatigue or from smoke, if not both. "If anyone starts off with anything like 'Tony, we're doing this because we care very much about you' I'm outta here."

Clint snickered. "No fear coming from me, buddy!" he said.

"What happened to you?" Natasha demanded. This had to outshine even in the infamous birthday party in the suit from three years ago, when Tony had thought he was dying and been even more self-destructive than usual. "Rough night?"

"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," Tony said firmly.

"At least tell us how you got injured," Steve said, frowning. "You didn't get into a fight, did you?"

"Well, this one was a shark," Tony said, waggling his bandaged hand. He tilted his chin up and to the side, revealing a deep red hickey. "And this one... was a cougar."

Steve shook his head incredulously. "Sharks and mountain lions?" he repeated. "Geez. What'd you do, go to a zoo?"

Natasha decided now was not the time to correct Steve on the finer points of Canadian late-90s slang.

"How'd you get bit by a shark?" Clint wanted to know.

"Well, it wasn't so much getting _bit_ by the shark," Tony began. "It was more that my hand got cut up on the scales when I grabbed it by the tail and used it to beat -"

"Where's Thor?" Natasha interrupted.

Tony shrugged "He was right behind me. Should be in in just a minute. Why?"

Natasha and Steve exchanged glances, then the Captain stepped aside so that Tony had an unobstructed view of the window seat. The window seat which, at present, contained a six-foot tall alien with bright blue skin and red eyes. There was a short-handled hammer resting across his lap, the head engraved with ancient runes, sparks of blue lightning flickering across the surface.

Tony blinked. It was visible even through his sunglasses. "Uh, wow," he said, taking off the sunglasses to squint at the apparition. Thor returned his gaze solemnly, shifting Mjolnir across his knees. "You got me a present and it isn't even my birthday."

Thor sighed. "Tony Stark, this is not the time for your jests," he said impatiently.

Tony ignored it, as he ignored all admonitions, and turned to the rest of the Avengers instead. "Okay, so what's Loki doing here?" he asked.

"That isn't Loki," Natasha replied. "...or so he says. It's Thor."

_"What?" _Tony goggled. "Uh, no, I just spent the last thirty-six hours in Vegas _with Thor._ There's got to be some mistake."

The Avengers repeated a tolerable precis of Loki's (Thor's?) story, carefully hedged round with "allegedlies" "supposedlies" and "so he says." Tony absorbed it all with an extremely skeptical expression. Natasha drifted over to Steve.

"This could get messy," Steve muttered. Natasha tilted her head in acknowledgement.

"As far as it goes, I believe him," she murmured. "But I can understand why others don't. If Loki comes in here and decides to stick to his masquerade, things could get... complicated."

Steve grimaced. With two people claiming to be Thor, all sorts of outcomes were possible. At best, they would be stuck trying to deduce which one was lying and which was telling the truth through careful observation, and keen pursuit of minor discrepancies in the story of one or another. At worst, they would have to lock them both up until some more solid proof could be found.

"My friends, I have returned from -" A voice came booming through the atrium as Loki, still wearing Thor's body, followed in Tony's wake. He cut off mid-word as he came in sight of the crowd waiting there - the Avengers, the SHIELD agents, and Thor. Holding Mjolnir.

"Loki," Thor said gravely, standing up from the couch.

At this point Loki - because there was no longer any doubt that this _was_ Loki - promptly _flipped his shit._

"You!" he screeched out, his voice shifting dramatically away from Thor's bass rumble to a much higher register. He clenched one fist, and bright green magical flames flared up around it. "How _dare_ you sit there - how dare you _come _in here, wearing that filthy skin? Carrying that hammer? You don't have the right, you filthy Jotun freak!"

There was more in that vein - a great deal more - but most of it was lost in alarmed shouting and scuffling as Loki lunged forward, launching a bolt of green flames at his brother's head. Steve met him halfway, a clash that made the windows rattle, and Clint and half-a-dozen SHIELD agents piled on to help him. During the scuffle, the copy of Mjolnir that Loki had been wearing got knocked away and skittered to the floor, and its appearance jumped and flickered a bit as the illusion faltered.

Even with help, Steve was no match for the strength of Thor's body, and skidded over the floor as he was shoved backwards. Suddenly there was a furious, familiar roar from over by the doorway as the Hulk put in an appearance.

"Hulk, grab him!" Steve yelled out, struggling to hold Loki back, and the big guy snorted and stepped forward to do exactly that. It took a few more minutes of wrestling, but at last the Avengers had managed to get the false Thor subdued in the Hulk's grasp.

Tony straightened up, wheezing slightly from the unexpected melee. "Good thinking, bringing in the Other Guy," he said. "You had him lying in wait just in case?"

Clint shrugged, picking dolefully at a jagged tear in his leather vest. "Actually, if I'm gonna be honest, I completely forgot he was even here till just now," he admitted.

The scuffle eventually resolved itself: Loki hanging limp in the Hulk's grip, wheezing and glaring indiscriminately at the lot of them. Thor stood in front of him, holding Mjolnir and frowning; the rest of the Avengers ranged themselves in an uncertain circle around them. Coulson and his team had fallen back to stand against the walls, looking as though all they needed to make their lives complete was a few buckets of popcorn.

"Well, what a nice pickle we've found ourselves in," Loki said mockingly. "But _whatever _will you do with me now? You can't reverse the spell without my help - you don't have the magic for it! Beat me up until I agree to do what you want? That won't work, you know; Thor has a head of steel. Torture me until I give in? Remember that it's not _my_ body that will suffer for it!"

"I have no doubt that we will find a way," Thor replied. "But Loki, you owe me answers for the grievances you have inflicted on me. What were you _thinking?_ What was your grand plan, Brother? I was certain you would take this chance to inflict harm upon my comrades, or upon this world. Believe me, I am grateful that you did not, but I cannot understand what, then, was your intent."

Loki began to laugh, high and mocking. "My intent?" he gasped out, lips curling back with cruel mirth. "My _plan?_ Look around you, Thor, and you'll see! I _beat _you, Thor! I beat you at your own game, in the only thing that really matters - at being _you!"_

Thor fell back a step, eyes stunned wide, but Loki needed no further encouragement to continue his ranting. "All those things you think make you so great... your title, your shiny hair, your bulging muscles, your fancy hammer - where did they go? You didn't work for them. You didn't earn them! They were gifts, and if they hadn't been given to you, you would be nothing! Anyone else who'd been as lucky as you could do as well, and I did! I did even _better_ than you, and everyone loves me for it!

"Do you get it now, Thor?" Loki snarled, surging forward in the Hulk's grasp to get right in Thor's face. "You're _nothing! _Take off the fancy outer coat and there's _nothing _there! I could have put a wig on a mop to take your place and who would tell the difference? Nobody missed you, nobody even noticed you were gone! I proved that _anyone _could take your place, _anyone _could be the Mighty Thor - even _me!"_

"No! Not anyone!" Thor snapped back, recovering from his initial surprise. "Only _you!_ Loki, don't you understand? Only someone as audacious as you could come up with this plan. Only someone as clever, and as skilled at magic, could have pulled it off. Only someone who knew me so well could have fooled my friends. Only someone brave and strong could have taken my place in battle."

His voice dropped, and Thor stepped forward, holding one hand out entreatingly towards his brother. Steve met Natasha's gaze, and Natasha rolled her eyes tellingly. Apparently, it was time for the appeal-to-Loki's-shared-brotherhood and-inherent-goodness part (which usually came right after the monster had been unleashed and right before Loki got a wedgie from the Hulk. Thor was a little late off the mark this time around, but nobody present could really blame him.)

"You were able to do it because you have courage, and cleverness, and power, and skill," Thor wheedled. "You could be a hero if you wanted - not by stealing my place, but in your own right! You could be it all by yourself, if you chose."

_"I CHOOSE?" _Loki's voice, raised to a shout in Thor's chest, was enough to rattle the rafters. "When have I ever gotten to _choose_ what I was, Thor? I never _chose_ to be what I am! Do you think I would have chosen to be - _that?"_ He spat at Thor's feet. "A filthy _Jotun?!"_

Abruptly Loki's eyes narrowed, and a cunning smile spread across his face. "But maybe there is wisdom in what you say after all, Brother," he said, mockery clear in his voice. "I _can_ be what I choose to be. And now I choose to be - _Thor! _And there's nothing you or any of your pet humans can do to stop me!"

With a worried look over his shoulder at Loki, Thor joined the rest of the Avengers in a huddle. "What are we gonna do now?" Steve asked. "Thor, is he telling the truth?"

Thor sighed. "As far as our chances of reversing the spell? Aye, I fear so," he replied. "My brother has always been unmatched at spellwork, and his methods have only grown more complex and devious since he left Asgard. In this body I have his magic, but not the knowledge to use it."

A glum silence met Thor's pronouncement. "What about Asgard? Would they be able to put you guys back?" Natasha asked.

"Maybe?" Thor didn't sound too terribly confident in his answer. "If all else fails, I can take him there and try. But even then there is no guarantee that they could overcome my brother's magic, and you would not be able to accompany me to restrain him."

"Even if it's a slim chance, it's probably the best we have," Steve said. "I don't think there's much chance of changing his mind by talking to him, or much we could offer him to get him to change his mind -"

"Actually," Tony interrupted. "I think I just might have something. C'mon over here, Thor."

Puzzled but pliant, Thor allowed Tony to drag him over to the couch and stand in front of it, face-to-face with Tony and standing in profile to Loki. Tony put one hand on Thor's hip, then turned to face Loki with a wicked smile. "Sure you won't change your mind, Quantum Leap?" he asked.

"Save your pitiful persuasions, mortal," Loki sneered, although there wasn't much heat to it; he seemed more confused than anything. "You have nothing to offer me."

"Really? You're positive?" Tony cocked an eyebrow in his direction, then shrugged and turned back to Thor. "Well, all right then."

He grabbed Thor's collar in one hand, insistantly pulling the taller man's head down to his level, and kissed him. His free hand went up to grip the long black hair at the back of his head as Thor flailed, holding him firmly in the clinch.

"What are you doing?" Loki sputtered. He spoke for all of them, Avengers included, who were staring openmouthed at the display Thor and Tony were putting on in the middle of the Avengers living room. "Stop that! Stop that at once! Who gave you permission to do that with _my body?"_

"Uh, actually you did, when you propositioned me in my lab yesterday," Tony said as an aside, freeing his mouth for a moment even as his hands wormed between the buttons of Thor's shirt. "So hey, if you're game, then I'm game, and it's game time. But like I told you yesterday: big blond types don't do it for me. So if you want to play, you'll have to get back in your own body."

"_This_ is Tony's idea of a _plan?"_ Clint muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Thor made an "ah!" sound of understanding, and stopped trying to squirm out of Tony's grasp. The blue of his skin was beginning to fade, chased away by normal human gold-peach wherever his and Tony's skin met. Tony took note of this interesting fact and ran with it, pawing his hands all over Thor's increasingly exposed arms and shoulders and neck as his open-mouthed kisses turned from the PG-rating towards something more R.

Thor made a few attempts to reciprocate, but they were clumsy and half-hearted, a fact which did not escape Loki's increasingly enraged attention.

"No! Get your hands off! He's _mine!"_ Loki shouted, and then a moment later, inconsistently. "Thor, get - _you are doing it wrong!"_

Tony came up for air long enough to throw an outrageous grin and eyebrow-waggle in Loki's direction. "Enjoying the view?" he said, sounding only a little out of breath. " 'Fraid we're going to have to vacate to a more private location for the next bit - would be even more fun if you were there, but as it is, I guess you'll just have to miss out -"

Loki snarled wordlessly, a ripsaw of frustration in the air, and then twisted suddenly in the Hulk's restraining grasp. A burning flash of light snapped into existence around him, arcing through the air to ground itself in Thor and snapping back again in less time than it took to blink.

Both Asgardians staggered back. In the Hulk's arms, Thor stumbled and would have collapsed onto the floor if not for the green steadying hands on his shoulders. He raised one trembling hand to rub at his face, feeling his nose and jaw and beard. "By Odin's beard!" he swore softly.

Loki, meanwhile, stood up straight - to his entire six feet of height - and reached out to grab Tony in a firm commanding grip. Before anyone else in the room could react he had Tony dipped backwards over the couch, one hand sliding expertly up his shirt as he returned the kiss with firm and very _definite_ expertise.

"What just happened" Clint demanded. "Shit, I blinked. Did they switch back or what? Did I miss it?"

"I... think so?" Steve said, brow wrinkling. "Thor? Are you back?"

"Aye, 'tis myself and no other," Thor said solemnly. He raised one hand out in front of him, and Mjolnir leapt from its place on the floor to fly to his hand. A bright grin broke out on his face as he hefted the hammer high. "By Asgard's lights, I have missed this!"

Steve leapt forward to pull Thor into a joyful hug. "Welcome back, Thor," Steve said, pulling back far enough to pound on Thor's shoulder.

"It is good to be back, Captain!" Thor replied. "You cannot imagine my relief that I have returned, not only safely but with all my friends safe as well. A better end to this misadventure than I could have hoped for!"

"Uh, guys? Are we actually going to do something about Loki?" Clint called out. Over by the couch, Loki and Tony were _still_ going at it, and Loki's hand was definitely no longer north of Tony's waistband. "I mean, like, arrest him or something."

As the attention of all of the Avengers - now including Thor - focused back on the couple, Loki pulled himself back from Tony with obvious, reluctant effort. He looked from Thor, to the Avengers, to the SHIELD agents hovering around the edges of the room, and scowled.

"This is not over," he vowed, and he drew himself up to his full height as he released Tony (though not without one final, regretful pat on his nether regions.) "Mark my words. You will rue this day!"

And with another eye-searing flash of magic, he was gone.

"Did Tony actually just french-kiss a supervillain into submission?" Clint said incredulously.

"Well, you have to admit it wouldn't be the first time," Natasha reminded them.

"We swore never to speak of that again!" Tony objected.

"Well, you swore never to do it again, and look where that got us," Natasha reminded him.

"Hey! Thor's back in his proper body, and we didn't have to kill or torture anyone to make it happen," Tony said. "There wasn't even any massive property damage to the Mansion this time. I think I did pretty well, don't you?"

Thor had been strangely quiet through this exchange, tugging at his shirt with a worried expression. "My friends will you excuse me a moment?" he asked. "I must comport myself. Um... there seems to be something very strange..."

Tony, having already totally forfeited any sense of shame for the evening, grabbed a corner of Thor's shirt and peeled it back. "Whoa, hey, big boy, what happened to all your _hair?" _he said.

Thor grimaced. "I can only suppose Loki must have removed it," he said. "As one final snipe at me. He does not have any such hair himself and has never had much patience for it."

"_Really,_" Tony said in a highly charged tone. "That's good to know."

Thor's attention was torn away from his own troubles for a moment, and he frowned thunderously at Tony. "For what reason would you need this knowledge, Tony Stark?" he demanded. "Now that the spell has been undone, there is no more need for any such pretenses."

"Who said anything about pretenses?" Tony shot back. "I already told you, tall dark and handsome is my type... Actually, I guess you weren't there for that part -"

Thor loomed over Tony, crackling with menace. "Tony Stark, what precisely are your intentions towards my brother?" he asked dangerously.

"Are we done here?" Bruce interrupted, having changed back from the Hulk sometime in the background when no one was paying attention to him. "Because if there's nothing more that needs the Avengers, I really would like to get back to my lab."

"Traitor!" Tony shouted at him. "Abandoning me in my hour of greatest need!"

"We've been over this, Tony," Bruce called back. "If you decide to stick your dick in crazy, I'm not going to bail you out of the consequences of your bad decisions!"

"Some Science Bro soulmate _you_ are!"

"Do you think El Olomega is still at the ballpark?" Steve asked Natasha.

"I think so," Natasha said, glancing briefly at her phone.

"Great," Steve said, turning away from the increasingly heated argument between Iron Man and the Norse god of thunder. "I'm buying."

* * *

><p>~end.<p> 


End file.
